Everyone knows the old Texas weather adage "if you don't like the weather, wait a minute", well the changes in our drought conditions took more than a minute, but none the less they happened very quickly!
Central Texas had an average start to the year when it comes to rainfall totals, but that chanced dramatically starting in May. From May thru August we were 6.71" below normal on rainfall, and in August we only received 0.01" of rain for the entire month.
This lack of rainfall during the summer months caused major drought conditions to develop not only in Central Texas, but much of the state of Texas as well. The following map is a look at the drought conditions when we were at the peak of the drought across most of the state. As you can see, the worst of the drought conditions were in our southern counties and points south from there, but every week the drought condition were getting worse further to the north.
All of the drought conditions changed very quickly during the months of September and October.
During September we received 8.24" of rain (5.36" more than normal), making it the 5th wettest September on record. A large chunk of that rain came in two days, as we saw 2.45" of rain on September 11th and 2.16" on the 12th. October continued the rainy trend, as we saw 9.71" of rain that month (6.04 above normal). Waco Regional Airport recorded rainfall 16 of the 31 days during October, and we ended up having the 3rd wettest October on record.
As you would expect with a lot of rain, we had a significant improvement in the drought conditions here in Central Texas. Here is a look at the current drought conditions for our area...
On top of not being in drought conditions anymore, most of the state has also seen a dramatic improvement in their rainfall totals. Much of the central and northern portions of the state our now enjoying a surplus of rainfall for the year...
Some of this rain may be attributed to El Niño... If you would like more information about El Niño, check out Rudy's blog.
Now lets cross our fingers and hope that the drought conditions don't return anytime soon!!
