Lady Bird Lake likely will spill out of banks in the coming hours, an Austin Energy spokesman said just after noon Friday.

All five floodgates are open at Longhorn Dam at the downstream end of the lake (beneath Pleasant Valley Road), spokesman Robert Cullick said, and water has stabilized at the same level on both sides of the low dam. At the same time, the Lower Colorado River Authority has one gate fully open on Tom Miller Dam at the lake’s upper end. More water is coming into Lady Bird Lake than can flow out at Longhorn, Cullick said.

“It’s just a water balance issue,” he said.

Austin Energy owns and operates Longhorn Dam. The other Colorado River dams upstream are under the control of the LCRA.

LCRA spokeswoman Clara Tuma said the gate at Tom Miller Dam was first opened around 10 a.m., and that for awhile a second gate was partially open. She said there are no plans at this point to reopen a second gate.

“But that could change based on weather conditions,” she said. “It’s a dynamic situation.”

Although this morning’s heaviest rains tended to fall downstream of Lake Austin and Tom Miller, the watersheds of Lake Austin and Lake Travis got anywhere from three to five inches of rain in West Austin and western Travis County, according to the LCRA.