Posted: Tue, 12 Jul 2011 12:34 PM - 15,577 Readers

By: Erika Aguilar

We still have a long way to go to break the Austin record of days with consecutive triple digit temperatures, but that does not mean we will not get there. The chances of cooling rain are getting slimmer.

April, May and June are our rainy season in Texas. But Austin is still in a 10-inch rainfall deficit with our best rain chances behind us. Our next hope is hurricane season, says Victor Murphy. He manages the National Weather Service’s South Regional Climate Center.

“For us to get any significant relief between now and September, I think we’re probably going to need some tropical cyclones,” Murphy told KUT News.

That’s what happened last year. Tropical Storm Hermine made landfall in South Texas last September and traveled up I-35, soaking San Antonio, Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth and into Southern Oklahoma.

That was the last time Texas saw significant rain. Right now, Texas is in a neutral weather pattern. But in a few months Texas will experience one of two weather anomalies.  Either El Nino, which could bring rain, or La Nina, which won’t.

“If we have another La Nina like we just had last fall and winter, the odds increase dramatically of us having another dry fall and winter season, which would not be good,” Murphy said. “Then the bad news [is], it’s looking a little more probable that [we will see] another La Nina next fall and winter.

Another La Nina would mean a drought comparable to the one in 2008 and 2009. That drought saw two La Ninas back-to-back, with a break in between. Water restrictions got tough, and farmers lost livestock and crops.

But what makes this current drought worse is that it is more widespread: 71 percent of Texas is in “exceptional” drought, making it the third worst drought on record. And people are noticing.

“We drove in, and we saw Lake Travis. There’s like no water in there,” Emily Baxter and Steven Beatty, who drove to Austin from Fort Worth, said. “There’s like grass growing where the water should be. Well, we have the Trinity River and it’s really low.”

It’s also surprising that Louisiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona are all experiencing some level of drought state-wide. But each dry La Nina pattern is different. And even though less rain could be in store for Texas, people use less water.

“Levels of our lakes will fall, but not at the same pace, because, as we get to October, irrigation season is over,” LCRA meteorologist Bob Rose said. “The temperatures start cooling down. People are not watering their yards as much so water consumption goes down.

Rose says the LCRA has never curtailed water during the winter. But come January 1, if lake levels are low because of little rain and an ongoing drought, water shortages could begin for farmers.

*  Story Contributed by: Erika Aguilar