Rain lifts area lakes, rivers

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Our Highland Lakes are rising by the hour, thanks to Monday's rain.

Before last week's rain, Lake Travis stood at 632 feet above mean sea level. On Friday, it rose almost ten feet to 641 feet. As of Monday at 3 p.m., Lake Travis had increased to just over 643 feet. Lake Buchanan stood at just above 993 feet.

Garfield Liddon came out on this rainy day to see how high Lake Travis would go.

"I think it's great," said Liddon. "Kind of thrilled to see it rise a bit. We need a lot more rain. We've been a long time without it."

He remembered how dangerously dry and low the lake levels got this summer.

"Incredible, scary, wasn't it?" said Liddon. "In fact, I was out here a few weeks ago and there were stumps out there on the lake. I thought I had seen the Lochness monster!"

LCRA Meteorologist Bob Rose said continued rain across Central Texas is a very welcome sight.

"It is amazing that our area can go from so dry and so hot to so wet," said Rose. "We're having one of our wetter Octobers on record."

Rose said we need 10 to 15 more inches of rain over the Hill Country to get Central Texas completely out of the drought.

"This is great," said Rose. "We've been waiting for this continued rain for so long. we've been seeing rain every four or five days in the area. This is exactly what we need to get us out of our drought."

However, despite the rise, much of Central Texas is still in a drought. That's because Lake Travis is about 23 feet below its monthly average.

And that means the LCRA is still asking residents to conserve water during these mandatory water restrictions.

For those putting a boat into Lake Travis, there is still only one boat ramp open at Mansfield Dam.

The City of Austin is also issuing a warning to those who walk the pedestrian trails along Shoal, Johnson, and Waller Creeks in downtown. City flood engineers said the trails will likely be flooded this morning through early afternoon. Residents should avoid those locations.

For more information, check out LCRA's Web site.