Posted: Wed, 28 Apr 2010 09:14 PM - 10,189 Readers
By: Asher Price
Mild drought likely as weather patterns change, LCRA says.To learn the future, the Greeks consulted the oracle at Delphi. The Romans examined entrails. Texans have AccuWeather.
Relying on data from the weather prediction authority and on his own expertise, the Lower Colorado River Authority's chief meteorologist declared Wednesday that a mild drought in Central Texas is likely this summer as below-average rainfall lands on the region.
Bob Rose, the meteorologist, told reporters and weather forecasters at a briefing that the rainy weather that characterized the past six months is tapering off.
"The prolific rain from the last few months appears to be winding down," he said, while presenting forecasts from AccuWeather, a Pennsylvania-based weather authority; something called the Coupled Forecast System, developed by the federal National Centers for Environmental Prediction; and the European Center for Weather and Forecasting. All, of course, are more scientific than Roman augury, which involved reading the flights of birds, or haruspicy, a fortune-telling practice involving the scrutiny of a sheep's liver .
Rose and other officials said that as of now, the dry spell would not amount to a return to the intense drought that raged in the Austin area in 2008 and 2009.
"There's no need to push the panic button," he said. "Water supplies are in good shape, and the subsoil moisture is there, so farmers should have no problems with their crops."
The rains are expected to subside as the El Niño effect so dominant in the Pacific Ocean gives way to a La Niña effect, which typically leads to drier weather in Texas.
The El Niño weather phenomenon, created when temperatures across the Pacific are higher than normal, meant this past winter was wetter and cooler across the United States. La Niña, the name of the phenomenon when surface temperatures in the Pacific cool, typically means less rain across the southwestern United States.
In previous years in which an El Niño shifted to a La Niña, rainfall during June, July and August was roughly 3 inches below normal in Central Texas, and temperatures were one to two degrees higher, he said.
Dry conditions could become an issue if they continue through the winter, he said.
Today, the Highland Lakes, which provide drinking water to more than a million Central Texans, are full or nearly so. That's a far cry from last September and early October, when, at the tail end of a brutal drought, the lakes were less than half full.
"It's obvious that we're looking at a very different river than we were a year ago," LCRA General Manager Tom Mason said.
Under normal conditions, Lake Travis will drop about 10 feet by Labor Day, said David Walker, who supervises the LCRA's river operations center. Under very dry conditions, it will drop 20 feet.
Lake Buchanan, now at 1,010 feet, could drop to as low as 1,000 feet under extreme conditions by the end of the summer, he said.
To their credit, the LCRA officials did not use phrases such as "reading the tea leaves" when presenting their predictions.
