rain

The Cereal King and the Drought Battle on the Llano Estacado.

/ Rowdy / Leave a comment

It is difficult for man to look beyond the scale of his own life. We might have a vague idea of what life was like for our parents before we were born, and we have an idea of how we would like life to be for our children, but for most of us that is as far as we usually think. A while back I was talking to a man who was born in Texas during the early 1950s, but spent much of his childhood out of state.

The Cereal King

C.W. Post
Photo courtesy of Library of Congress

He told me about how it used to always rain in Texas and how drought was a rare thing when he was a child. This is the despite the massive drought during the 1950s, a period of time author Elmer Kelton called “The Time it Never Rained.”

In truth, much of western Texas has probably known more dry years than wet years.

Truly, fighting drought is nothing new; however, the methods change. While we have new technology to aid our fight, those in times past were also attempting novel ways of breaking a drought. Let me introduce you to C.W. Post. Continue reading →

Grab a paddle

/ Rowdy / Leave a comment

A while back I posted an explanation of where and how much it would need to rain in order to fill up Fort Phantom lake. Not accounting for absorption or detention in ponds and other low lying areas it would take a 2.6 inch rain on the entire watershed to fill up the lake, according to my previous calculations. Well, currently Cedar, Elm and Catclaw creeks are out of their banks in places. The following map shows a few rainfall totals for places in the Fort Phantom watershed

7_7Rain

Without data for the western edge of the watershed, it is impossible for me to offer a good estimate of exactly how much water will flow to Fort Phantom lake; however, judging from how little Lake Abilene has risen, I think it is safe to say that portion of the watershed will not contribute as much water to Fort Phantom as the eastern half. As of today (July 7th) the lake is at 45.3%, but click on the link to see the current lake level. Get ready to see a change in the lake level in as the week goes on! And check back here later this week to read about why it can take so long between a rainfall event and a change in the lake level.

Goldilocks wouldn’t like Texas

/ Rowdy / 1 Comment

What a difference a week made for some places in Texas! Parts of Texas experienced massive flooding which resulted in deaths, bridges lost, and at least one dam failure. Many reservoirs experienced dramatic changes in water level, with some becoming full nearly overnight. Possum Kingdom is full and was releasing water into the Brazos, and evacuations are occurring downstream. For the first time since June 2010, the USDA Drought Monitor does not show any severe drought in Texas (and it should be noted that time in 2010 without severe drought lasted only six months.) We have been free of severe drought only 26 months spread out over the last 11 years, and completely free of drought only three months during that same period.

Despite all of this rain and despite the drought relief, for many Texans, it is the same story as last week: The ground is damp, but the lakes are dry. Here is an updated map comparing the new drought index with current lake levels:

The largest red circles represent lakes that are below 25% of capacity, the medium dots are lakes that are between 25 and 50% full, and the smallest dots are lakes which are between 40 and 75%.

A comparison between the USDA Drought Index and Texas Lake Levels.

A comparison between the USDA Drought Index and Texas Lake Levels.

As you can see, while those along the Brazos are wet, people along the upper reaches of the Colorado River are still dry, even if the drought index has shrunken. With another month of spring left, hopefully things will continue to change for those of us in the dry areas; however, in this area the el niño effect often wanes during the summer before returning during winter. In other words, we may have a wet summer in the western portion of the state, or we may not.

Here is a comparison of May rainfall totals for a few select stations across the drought area. For ease of data collection these are mostly airport locations, so the totals may vary slightly from nearby cities. Notice that other than a few large outliers (Austin at nearly 17 inches of rain for example) that some of the dry areas aren’t that far behind some of the wetter areas. This goes back to my previous post about watersheds: it takes rain in a certain area to influence lake levels.

Rainfall totals so far this May (inches).

Rainfall totals so far this May (inches).

Certainly, we are better off today than we were this time last year, but now is not the time to abandon water conservation. In terms of water it seems the state has very few places that Goldilocks would consider just right.

Next week I begin a three part series on how one city in Texas obtains its drinking water. If you enjoyed this post, please surf over to the Instante Mense facebook page and like it.

What does it take to fill up a lake?

/ Rowdy / 6 Comments

UPDATE: After reading this post to find out why it seems the lake rises so slowly, check out this post where I discuss the recent rain.

Most of Texas has been in exceptional and extreme drought for the past five years. Now due to  el niño, we are finishing spring with cool, wet weather. For the first time in what seems like forever much of Texas is officially drought-free. In fact, some areas are experiencing severe flooding; however, that is not the complete story. What I would like to do today is discuss the flooding and drought issues here in Texas on a watershed level.

Despite these floods and despite the fact that overall Texas reservoirs are 78% full, many lakes are at less than 50% of capacity. People living in the Rolling Plains and Edwards Plateau ecoregions of Texas are still experiencing drought conditions. I built this map below to give an idea of the land area in Texas suffering from drought conditions and to show the number of lakes that are less than half full.

drought_d

In the areas still in drought above live approximately 3.5 million people and all of the lakes shown are water sources for these people. There are other water sources, some lakes which have received some water, and other areas depend upon aquifers (a nonrenewable source), but these empty lakes remain important.

What does it take to fill up a lake?

When it rains, the water does several things. On pervious surfaces, such as lawns and fields, it soaks into the ground to provide soil moisture needed for plants. If the rate of precipitation is greater than what can be absorbed, or if the rain lands on hard surfaces, it begins to run off. Take a parking lot for example: rain runs off of the parking lot into a drainage ditch (or storm sewer), the ditch runs into a gully, that gully runs into a creek, that creek runs into a river, and that river may run into a lake before it ends at the ocean. Cities will then pump water from the lake, treat it, and then citizens will use that water in their houses.

Every lake has a certain area from which it will collect water. This area is called a watershed. Since most of my readers are from the Abilene area, I will use Lake Fort Phantom as an example. This lake is currently at 37% capacity. The watershed of Fort Phantom is approximately 500 square miles. If this entire area were to receive a 1 inch rain and if it were all run into the lake, it would receive 8.66 BILLION gallons of water! That is enough water to last 26,600 families for a year. This also happens to be roughly the amount of water in Lake Fort Phantom right now, and there are 10 times as many people depending upon that water.

Using the example above it would take 2.6 inches of rain over the entire watershed to completely fill up Lake Fort Phantom. Recently much of the Big Country has received lots of rain; the nearby town of Merkel has received 11 inches of rain in the last six weeks, but as I mentioned above, Lake Fort Phantom is only 37% full.

So, where did the water go?

Examine this map I made of the Fort Phantom watershed:

Phantomshed

The rain has to fall into the red shaded area in order to reach the lake. While the lake has 500 square miles to draw from, in reality that is not a lot of area. Merkel may have received a lot of rain, but that water will end up in the Brazos river and not Lake Fort Phantom. Another issue is that not all the rain that falls in the watershed actually ends up in the lake. As I mentioned before, some water is absorbed, but a sustainable amount of water is also diverted into ponds, ephemeral wetlands, rainwater collection catchments and flood control basins. Once it is in these areas the water is used by many people and animals, and these areas should not be considered a waste of water.

The drought may be over for most of Texas, and in the coming weeks the drought may be over for us on the Rolling Plains, but please keep in mind that it takes rain falling in exact areas to refill our water supplies. Though it may seem like we are receiving a lot (and in some areas too much) water, we should not back away from water conservation efforts. We may have a cool wet summer, but then again, we may not.

It is a long time until September.

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