Exceptional drought expected to worsen

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Central Texas' exceptional drought is forecasted to worsen.

The latest U.S. Drought Monitor indicates drought conditions will persist or intensify through August for south Central Texas and west of Travis County.

Because rain amounts are below normal in what are typically the wettest months of the year, areas from south and west Travis County are in the exceptional drought category, which is the worst of the five drought categories.

"Our state climatologist did a study showing the intensity of this drought in our area is worse than what we saw in the 50s," said LCRA meteorologist Bob Rose. "This rivals the drought of 1917, 1918 just because it's been so dry."

Williamson County has seen some improvement with recent rain but remains the extreme drought catagory. A changing long term weather pattern could bring more rain but would be too late to help area farmers.

"In the short term I don't think we'll see many impacts from El Nino for the remainder of June into July," said Rose. "I think that we'll start seeing more impacts late summer, early fall where we'll start seeing more of the moisture off the gulf."

Many area farmers like J.P. Jansen of Hays county are struggling. Their corn fields are brown when they should be green. Only five to eight inches of rain have fallen on their land since January. Hays county typically sees around 12 inches of rain by June. The Jansens are destroying their corn crop Friday after having it appraised by crop insurance. But even with insurance, they are hoping to break even this year.

"Unfortunately, most of us producers here have had a number of bad runs where our yield is dropping dramatically," said farmer J.P. Jansen. "And, it's very difficult for us to even purchase enough coverage to cover all of our input costs."