Is Texas still in a drought? Here’s how fall rains have helped
With Texas getting abundant rain throughout this week, is the long-lasting drought finally letting up?
This has been the eighth driest year to date in Texas, over the past 128 years. That’s increased the risk of crop and livestock losses, sparked wildfires, pushed the power grid to its limits and reduced reservoirs to lower levels.
After 67 straight days without measurable rain this summer, record August rainfall of 10.68 inches ended drought conditions in some areas. But after an extraordinarily dry September with only 0.33 inches of rain, nearly all of North and Central Texas dried out once again. In fact, there was no rain at all in Dallas-Fort Worth between Sept. 5 and Oct. 10. October rainfall was below average for all but western Texas until storms this week brought several inches of rain to the state.
That late October rain has helped the state bounce back, per the latest drought numbers. As of Oct. 27, 75% of Texas was in drought conditions, affecting an estimated 15.3 million Texans, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Only 13% of the state is seeing extreme or exceptional drought. Just three months ago, 97% of the state was in drought with 60% extreme or exceptional.
In Tarrant County, 65% was experiencing drought, down from 100% in July. That’s affected the 1.1 million residents in drought areas. And none of the county is experiencing the highest levels of drought.
But we’re not out of the woods just yet, as 145 county burn bans are still in place, 245 counties have disaster designations and water supply is down 16% from a year ago. With La Niña expected to prevail, according to the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center’s Seasonal Drought Outlook released on Oct. 20, broad-scale drought in the Southwest is likely to persist through the end of January. There’s also a 40 to 50% chance of below normal precipitation this month, a trend that’s favored to remain in the next three months.
This story was originally published October 28, 2022 at 3:53 PM.
