Posted: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 09:27 PM - 10,477 Readers

By: KXAN News

It has been a record-breaking summer in the worst possible way. The average temperature in July of 2009 at Camp Mabry was the warmest on record. There have been 68 100 degree days. That puts us just one day from tying the record of 100 degrees days set in 1925.


View of Lake Travis during the 1951 drought, showing extremely low water level, August 17, 1951. (LCRA Corporate Archives, W00406)

View of Hughes Docks, now Tom Hughes Park, during the 1952 drought. Sometimes Island and Windy Point are visible in the background, August 1952. (LCRA Corporate Archives, W00408)

Now, climatologists are putting this two year drought in second place for worst in recorded history. The Drought of Record from the 1940s and 50s remains in first place, by a hair.

“The1950s is still the drought of record even though we’ve seen record low inflows and these dry hot temperatures,” said LCRA River Manager, Mark Jordan. “The next criteria we’re looking at is those lake levels. If we were to get lower than 600,000 acre feet which is a similar low volume to what we saw in the 1950s drought…we’d have to go back and work with our customers and begin implementing a pro radical curtailment of water supplies.”

Pictures of Lake Travis and Lake Buchanan from the 40s and 50s are in the slideshow above.

Norman Snow's family has ranched near Bertram for generations. He was too young to remember much about the Drought of Record. But his wife’s uncle, G.H. "Son" Turner does.

"It was dry, bad,” said Turner. “Just don’t know yet if it’s quite as bad yet or not. But it’s getting close."

Just outside of town, Cow Creek becomes Hubbard Falls. It has been a watering hole for as long as people can remember. It is a normally beautiful place whose name comes from a story about a man, “Hubbard”. His dead body was found here around the time of the Civil War. Now, the falls are dry.

The worst part is Cow Creek flows into Lake Travis. After record low inflows in 2008, Jordan says 2009 could be as bad.

The good news is even with the record low inflows, lake levels are not as low as those in the 1950s.

“We’re in better shape,” said Jordan. “Once again, I mentioned we have 2,000 acre feet more in storage than they did in the worst case in the 1950s and that’s in spite of the fact we’ve had record high temps and record low inflows going into the Highland Lakes because we’re better able to manage the Highland Lakes today.”

That management led to Stage II water restrictions in Austin and mandatory water restrictions for all of the LCRA’s customers.

“Back in the 1950s there a lot more agricultural use,” said Jordan. “The lakes to the extent of water supply were primarily needed for our downstream irrigation operations. But today with incredible growth we’ve seen in our region the demand is much more with the cities, business and industries that have grown up in Central Texas.”

In Bertram, Snow started Ranchers Feed and Supply in the 1960s. It's that business that is staying afloat when others are barely treading water.

"With the economy being down, we were afraid we'd be doing a lot less but with the drought were actually doing more this summer than we've had in the past summers," said Snow.

Longtime ranchers may not be so lucky unless we see more relief.

“We’re in real trouble if we have one more year like this,” said Snow. “There’s going to be a lot of stock sold.”

*  Story Contributed by: KXAN News