(upbeat music)
[Dr. Mark Wentzel] Hi everyone,
and welcome to the Texas Water Development Board's
latest Water and Weather Report.
I'm Dr. Mark Wentzel,
a hydrologist from the Surface Water Division
here at the agency.
And today, we'll be taking a look at
conditions for our state at the end of January 2021.
Let's take a look at some of the big water headlines
at the end of January.
Most noteworthy in January,
Texas experienced a 37- percentage-point decrease
in the area impacted by drought.
Less than 45 percent of the state is now in drought,
concentrated in the south, west, and Panhandle.
For comparison,
81 percent of the state was in
drought at the end of December 2020.
Statewide storage in our water supply reservoirs
is at 82 percent of capacity,
which is normal for this time of year.
And La Niña conditions are expected
to continue through March 2021
but dissipate later in the year.
What a difference a month and a little rainfall
can make this time of year.
In Texas, large drought improvement
over a four-week time period generally occurs
between mid-April and mid-November,
a time period of high temperatures
and vigorous plant growth.
It takes a lot of rainfall to overcome those ingredients
and provide drought relief.
But this time of year,
the recipe for drought improvement
is a little different.
Let's call it a winter recipe
and take a closer look at the seasonal ingredients.
The first ingredient is a heavy dose of drought.
By the end of December 2020,
81 percent of the state was in drought.
But the second and third ingredients
gave us a bit of a break.
Because of the time of the year,
we had cool temperatures,
which reduces evaporation. And plants were dormant,
which means they use less soil moisture.
Cooler temperatures and plants using less soil moisture
are two ingredients that helped push us
toward less drought this January.
The final ingredient was some modest rainfall.
January rainfall itself
wasn't all that spectacular,
only above average for a few areas of the state.
But on the last day of December,
we did get more than three inches of rainfall
in parts of East Texas,
and an inch and a half in parts of West and Central Texas.
That combination of cooler temperatures,
reduced plant activity,
and modest rainfall in late December and January
was enough to give us some much-needed drought relief.
Most parts of the state
saw a one- or two-class improvement in drought,
and the total area of drought fell 37 percentage points.
This recipe with modest rainfall only worked
because it was the cool time of year.
Later in the year,
as the days get warmer and plants become more active,
it will take larger rainfall amounts
to provide additional drought relief.
That completes our look back at January 2021
and the recipe for four-week winter drought improvement.
But what might the next few months hold for us?
The latest seasonal outlook
from the National Weather Service
has some good news and some bad news.
The bad news, La Niña conditions are expected
to remain in place through the end of April,
bringing Texas warmer and drier than normal conditions.
As a result,
drought is expected to expand in Central Texas
and the Panhandle.
The good news,
thanks to recent moisture, North, Central, and East Texas
are expected to remain drought free.
The better news,
there's a better-than-even chance,
55 percent, that La Niña conditions will begin to disappear
in the April, May, June timeframe.
That concludes our report.
Until next time,
I hope you all stay healthy and safe.