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Andrew Weinberg – Recorder Well Program Lead, Texas Water Development Board   

Welcome to Water and Weather. I'm Andrew Weinberg, guest hosting today. I'm team lead for the Recorder Well Program at the water development board. I've been with the board since about 2009, working on various groundwater projects. I'm here today to talk about groundwater and how it relates to water and weather conditions here in Texas.

Cool weather has slowed drought intensification and development over the last month. The area of the state in drought will probably end the month within five percentage points of where it started. Precipitation has been close to normal statewide, with nothing in the driest or wettest quartiles. The outlook is essentially the same as last month, with all of the state in drought by the end of spring. Nationally, the eastern two-thirds of the country is predicted to be hotter-than-normal over the next three months, with the greatest departures from normal centered on southwestern Texas. Below-normal precipitation is forecast for the next three months. The worst of the drought is forecast to be in the Four Corners region, but virtually all of Texas is predicted to be leaning dry.

Groundwater is the dominant source of water for rural, domestic use, livestock, and irrigated agriculture. Monitoring groundwater is one of the main ways the TWDB collects data to help ensure the state is tracking its groundwater supply. Groundwater monitoring is the main way that we can tell if we're meeting the goals in the state water plan or not. Groundwater monitoring is a joint effort between the TWDB and groundwater conservation districts or GCDs throughout the state. Our agency collects annual data on a core suite of about 1,800 observation wells. We also receive data from about 230 recorder wells equipped with automatic systems to measure water levels.

The TWDB aggregates groundwater data from the GCDs, the U.S. Geological Survey, and our own monitoring network and maintains platforms for public access to this information. The Water Data Interactive viewer has a map of all the wells in our groundwater database, and the Water Data for Texas website has links to data from all the recorder wells in Texas.

State Well Number 6837203, also known as the J17 Index Well, is one of the best-known recorder wells. This well is completed in the Edwards Balcony Fault Zone Aquifer in Fort Sam Houston in Bexar County. The water level in the well is currently 69 feet below land surface. Drought warning level for the well is at 70 feet below ground surface. So, we're just skirting along just above drought levels. Over the last month, water levels went up about five feet and then ended the month back down about where they started. Over the year, it’s also gone up and down but is essentially unchanged over the course of the year.

Another recorder well that we’re tracking is State Well Number 7738103 in the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer near La Pryor in La Salle County. This well rose about five feet over the last month, ending the month at about 493 feet below land surface. This well has dropped approximately 350 feet over the course of the last decade. Over the last 10 years, the water level in this well has dropped from about 250 feet below ground surface down to about 550 feet below land surface.

Another well that we’re tracking is State Well Number 5216802 in the Edwards-Trinity Plateau Aquifer in Pecos County near Fort Stockton. This well currently has a water level of about 192 feet below land surface but has gone up several feet over the course of the last month. In the longer term, this well tends to bounce up and down a lot seasonally, owing to irrigation water use in the region.

If you want to know more about groundwater in Texas, feel free to check out the Water Data for Texas website or visit the Groundwater Division webpage at twdb.texas.gov.