Posted: Fri, 19 Feb 2016 08:23 PM - 16,478 Readers

By: Jared Plushnick

Within the past few months, we have gone from flooding rain to barely seeing a cloud in the sky. This made our surplus of rainfall a distant memory.

"For the first time since October 27th of last year, we are now back under a moderate drought that covers about three quarters of the area including all of Travis County. Today (Thursday) is now day 43 with no measurable rainfall here in the city," said Albert Ramon, KVUE Storm Team Meteorologist.

Even with the potential for some rain this weekend, a lot of vegetation has been drying up.

For the past couple of months we have been talking about this "Godzilla El Niño." Its out there and was so strong it brought us a warm, dry winter. The question now is, will it actually help us?

"With El Niño lingering into the spring months we are still expecting above average rainfall a little bit later this year. April and May could get busy and that is certainly some good news," said Ramon.

Also, this time around, area lakes are in much better shape. John Hoffmann, executive vice president of water with the LCRA, said this is good news.

"So we're a much better position in 2016 to deal with any drought conditions that we may face this year, then what we were a year ago," said Hoffmann.

Despite the lack of wet weather, don't let that fool you. Lake Travis is nearly full, and could be fragile.

"Just over three feet of elevation left at Lake Travis. So what that means is, we are a large thunderstorm away from having a flood operation at Mansfield Dam for the first time in years," said Hoffmann.

We may have to wait a bit longer for consistent rain, but we know its coming.

*  Story Contributed by: Jared Plushnick