Drought, wildfires, and extreme weather — is this the new normal for Texas?
Add another $253 million to the billions of dollars lost to the drought. That’s according to a new report by the Legislative Budget Board (LBB) that looks at losses from state agencies and public higher education in Texas. $208 million of those losses were due to firefighting costs, most of it spent by the Texas Forest Service. But […]
It’s raining (and in some cases, flooding) across Texas. A popular question this morning will be: Is the Drought Over? And the answer to that largely depends on where you are. If you’re in East Texas, the answer is a qualified yes. (Many reservoirs still haven’t recovered.) In West Texas? There’s still a ways to […]
The lakes neared historic lows during the drought last year. So what would it take to get them back up?
This morning, Kate Galbraith of the Texas Tribune led a discussion on Twitter with Laura Huffman of the Nature Conservancy and Charles Fishman, author of The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water on what to do about water issues in Texas. As the state grows and it seems to rain less and less, […]
Map by NOAA Break out the jorts and put away the turtlenecks, because the U.S. just ended the warmest 12-month period in its entire history, according to new numbers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Naturally, Texas was no exception. The state had its second hottest May to April ever, and twenty-two other states had their […]
It’s been raining across Texas, and more is on the way. In the map to the right from the National Weather Service, you can see predictions for rainfall between three to five inches through Sunday this week for much of the state. It’s welcome news for West Texas, which continues to struggle with the ongoing drought, while […]
Parts of Texas got a peek at one of the coolest lunar moments of the year last weekend.
It’s official. The La Niña weather pattern, one of the big factors behind the Texas drought, has finally left, according to a report out this week from the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center. But will she come back? It’s a vital question, because the last two years we’ve seen back-to-back La Niñas. That resulted in […]
The first wildfires of 2012 are still burning in West Texas, but the Texas Forest Service says they’re mostly contained at this point. It’s a good time to take a look back to the record season of wildfires last year. All told wildfires in 2011 burned nearly four million acres, almost three thousand homes, and […]
Despite the fact that it’s been a relatively dry April for much of the state, particularly Central Texas, the slow improvement of the drought continues, though the news isn’t all good. The latest numbers released today by the the National Drought Monitor show that parts of the state are still making their way out of […]
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