{"id":2758,"date":"2011-12-05T12:59:37","date_gmt":"2011-12-05T18:59:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=2758"},"modified":"2011-12-05T12:59:37","modified_gmt":"2011-12-05T18:59:37","slug":"after-days-of-rain-the-drought-is-still-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2011\/12\/05\/after-days-of-rain-the-drought-is-still-here\/","title":{"rendered":"After Days of Rain, the Drought is Still Here"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Photo by Scott Olson\/Getty Images<\/p>

An empty rain gauge is strapped to a fence post on the edge of a pasture this summer near Canadian, Texas<\/p><\/div>\n

Rains fell across much of Texas the past few days. The Dallas-Fort Worth area received between three and four inches of rain, Houston got under an inch,\u00a0and Austin got a good soaking of two inches.<\/p>\n

So what effect have these rains had on the drought?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really not a big change at all,\u201d says Bob Rose, Chief Meteorologist with the Lower Colorado Authority, which oversees water in Central Texas. \u201cOur lake levels didn\u2019t rise hardly at all,\u201d Rose says. \u201cAnd even for area aquifer levels, this didn\u2019t have a huge effect on them either. This was a start in getting us out of the drought, but this by no means ended the drought at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

The situation in Dallas-Fort Worth isn\u2019t much different. \u201cWe\u2019re going to need more rain than we\u2019ve gotten,\u201d says Bob Carle, Senior Hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Fort Worth. \u201cLooking at an area above Lake Lavon northeast of Dallas that picked up widespread three to four inches of rainfall, the river gauges there had virtually no reaction. So the bulk of the rainfall is soaking into the ground.\u201d The ground is so dry, it\u2019s absorbing the rain like a sponge. Carle says the lake, a major water source, rose just over half a foot.<\/p>\n

So while the rain has been good for thirsty lawns, ranch ponds and next spring\u2019s wildflowers, it has hardly put a dent in the drought. Central Texas still needs 18-25 inches of rain to end the drought, and Dallas-Fort Worth lakes are all down by several feet.<\/p>\n

Is there any more on the way? For Austin and Central Texas, things don\u2019t look great. \u201cWe\u2019re really enjoying this period right now while the rain is coming into Texas, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to last that much longer,\u201d Rose says.<\/p>\n

And in Dallas-Fort Worth and North Texas, it\u2019s going to go back into a dry weather pattern until at least next weekend. \u201cI\u2019m not very hopeful for much more rain in the short term,\u201d Carle says.<\/p>\n

In Houston, the Chronicle’s SciGuy Eric Berger reports<\/a> that even though the city’s seen a wetter than normal November, “it\u2019s worth remembering that the city of Houston is still\u00a0more than 20 inches<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0of rain behind its normal rainfall totals for the year.” Berger says that Houston’s next chance for rain could come next week.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s hoping for a wet Christmas in Texas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rains fell across much of Texas the past few days. The Dallas-Fort Worth area received between three and four inches of rain, Houston got under an inch,\u00a0and Austin got a good soaking of two inches. So what effect have these rains had on the drought? \u201cIt\u2019s really not a big change at all,\u201d says Bob […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":2762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[58],"tags":[61,85],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2758"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2758"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2765,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2758\/revisions\/2765"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}