Lake levels suffering amid rain streak

LAKE TRAVIS, Texas (KXAN) - Even with a 10-day streak of rain in the KXAN viewing area, Lake Travis is still almost 29 feet below its historic July average of 668.91 feet above mean sea level.

• Photos: Drought grips much of U.S.

At 8 a.m. Tuesday, Lake Travis was at 640.24 feet above mean sea level -- at just 639.71 feet exactly a week ago.

A week before that, on July 3, Lake Travis was at 640.12 feet above mean sea level.

Lower Colorado River Authority spokeswoman Clara Tuma said that while the overall weekend rains helped trees and vegetation and also reduced the fire risk, they didn’t have much of an impact on the lakes.

As the area remains in a drought, Lake Travis is only 48 percent full.

Lake-level numbers

Thursday, still not much change -- at 639.89 feet.

• The total combined storage in the Highland Lakes' two water-storage reservoirs, lakes Buchanan and Travis, is at 983,000 acre-feet, or 49 percent of capacity.

Wednesday -- at 639.86 feet

• Lake Travis has gone up a little, but not much. There was some heavy rain throughout the previous days, but the rain was isolated and resulted in the stream flow quickly receding. That meant inflows to the lakes remained minimal.

July 10

• 639.71 feet

July 9

• 639.55 feet

July 8

• 639.6 feet

July 1

• 640.22 feet

Meanwhile, Sunday’s record Austin rainfall total of 2.7 inches has taken the monthly total to nearly 6 inches -- 4 inches more than the average amount for the entire month of July.

Rainfall totals this month have topped 13 inches in Southwest Round Rock and 12 inches just east of Webberville. Graphics showing July rainfall totals from all of the KXAN viewing area are posted on the weather blog.

The upper-level low responsible for the wet weather is still located west of our area, so some additional showers and thunderstorms may develop Tuesday and Wednesday. Still, the probabilities of rain are decreasing.

High pressure should mostly end the rainfall during the latter half of the week, followed by mostly hot and dry weather into next week. 

Drought across the nation

The drought gripping the United States is the widest since 1956, according to new data released Monday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Some 55 percent of the continental U.S. was in a moderate- to extreme drought by the end of June, NOAA's National Climactic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., said in its monthly State of the Climate drought report. That's the largest percentage since December 1956, when 58 percent of the country was covered by drought.

This summer, 80 percent of the U.S. is abnormally dry, and the report said the drought expanded in the West, Great Plains and Midwest last month with the 14th warmest and 10th driest June on record.