Texas lake levels falling fast as drought continues

Lake levels falling fast as Texas drought continues

Still plenty of water in Lake Travis, but well below normal for this time of year.

AUSTIN, Texas - The Texas drought continues and the lake levels are falling fast. So are we in danger of seeing conditions like in the desert southwest?

As of Tuesday, Lake Travis is about 54% full. That means there's about 623,000-acre feet of water in it, or nearly 203 billion gallons of water left over in the lake.

Still plenty of water, but well below normal for this time of year. Normally, Lake Travis should be about 85% full.

That means Lake Travis is abnormally low, however, as recently as 2016 lake levels were even lower, closer to 40% full. Over the past 80 years that Lake Travis has been in operation, there have been seven times when water levels have been lower.

Some, between 2012 and 2015, never saw recovery above 50% full. So that begs the question, is Lake Travis destined to become the next Lake Mead?

In short, no.

The climate around Lake Mead is much, much drier than Lake Travis. Out in the desert, the Colorado River is dependent on rain and snow that almost exclusively happens in the winter. That means that between May and October almost zero rain runs off into the river to replenish the reservoir.

Compare that to Central Texas which gets on average about 2 to 3 inches of rain during our hottest months. That means our Colorado River can help refill the lake even when the weather is the hottest.

That doesn't mean that water conservation isn't important in Central Texas.

Our rain is famously erratic and the blazing summer sun will continue to work hard to evaporate as much water as possible. But the Gulf of Mexico will always provide enough moisture to eventually help fill up the lakes. Not to mention the rain from those huge spring thunderstorms.

Texas' greater water threat will remain to be depleting aquifers and groundwater around the region. Over extraction and a steady drying of the western Hill Country due to climate change will put extra pressure on the groundwater supplies if careful measures aren't followed to conserve that precious resource.