DFW lakes full, but should get a break this week

North Texas lakes could use a break from the rain, and it looks like the weather will cooperate for most of this week.

After Monday’s showers, the weather should be relatively quiet until this weekend.

Through 2 p.m. Monday, Dallas/Fort Worth Airport had recorded 11.11 inches of rainfall this year, which was 0.54 inch below normal and less than the 14.67 inches recorded through May 2 last year.

For those who manage area lakes, a brief reprieve is needed.

Last week, the Tarrant Regional Water District, which operates Lake Bridgeport and Eagle Mountain Lake, was closely watching rising lake levels. Releases from those lakes also affect Lake Worth.

The next week should give both Bridgeport and Eagle Mountain a chance to get back to normal. Both were still above conservation levels on Monday but were dropping, said David Marshall, the water district’s director of engineering and operations support.

Lake Worth, which is owned by the city of Fort Worth, also remained above conservation level on Monday.

“Everything is on the way down,” Marshall said. “It will give our flood folks a break, but it’s still springtime. All of the lakes and stock tanks are full. It will only take a day or two of rain for everything to start running off again.”

Weather is expected to be dry through Friday, and rain chances will return this weekend, though it’s too early to predict how much rain might fall.

“We may have rain chances Saturday through next Tuesday, but some models say we’ll go back dry while some disagree,” said Jennifer Dunn, a National Weather Service meteorologist. “We really can’t say at this point.”

The Army Corps of Engineers’ Fort Worth District was holding back water to prevent downstream flooding in all of its North Texas lakes.

The reservoir with the highest level, Benbrook Lake, was 49 percent into its flood pool. The lake could still climb more than 7 feet before reaching the notched spillway where water starts being released. As the lake climbs higher, more water is released. But the lake can then climb 14 more feet before reaching the top of the spillway.

Lake Grapevine was 31 percent into its flood pool but can climb more than 15 feet before reaching the top of the spillway.

Clay Church, a spokesman for the corps’ Fort Worth district, said water will be released from some lakes this week if the Trinity River basin can handle more.

Two of the main gauges downstream in Dallas are being watched closely.

On Monday the flood gauge near the Commerce Street bridge near downtown Dallas could handle more water but the gauge farther downstream at Rosser was still high.

“If the capacity is there later this week, we will start making releases out of these flood pools,” Church said.

Although lakes in North and East Texas are full, some lakes west of Fort Worth aren’t full.

Hubbard Creek Lake, about 110 miles west of Fort Worth, is nowhere near full. But the lake, which was 12 percent full a year ago, has climbed to higher than 62 percent.

Bill Hanna: 817-390-7698, @fwhanna

This story was originally published May 2, 2016 at 7:55 AM with the headline "DFW lakes full, but should get a break this week."