Todd Wiseman/Texas Tribune
This week, oil prices dropped below $50 for the first time since February, a development that could upend the state’s predictions of oil revenue for this year.
Estimates from the Comptroller of Public Accounts put oil prices at an average of just over $64 per barrel in 2015 and 2016. And, as of now, those predictions are rosier than the reality of the market, meaning the state’s loss in oil and gas tax revenue could impact the Texas budget going forward.
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US Drought Monitor
Texas Drought Map.
The latest drought report from the Texas Water Development Board has some good news. After more than five years, spring rains saturated the ground enough to finally end our long drought — our long soil moisture drought. But that doesn’t mean water shortages don’t still plague some parts of the state, and that water challenges wont stay with Texas into the foreseeable future.
“So we have hydrologic drought,” says Robert Mace with the Texas Water Development Board.
He says the ground is doing great, but parts of the state need much more rain to replenish their reservoirs.
“If you look at Lake Abilene, which is, believe it or not…3.4 percent full. And that was last full in 2011. Another example is Lake Meredith, up north of Amarillo, [which is] 15.6 percent full currently,” Mace says.
Mace is optimistic those and the rest of the state’s reservoirs can recover this winter, when El Niño conditions are expected to bring us more rain.
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