No question the rain the past couple of months has improved our drought across Texas and, especially, southeast Texas.
Here’s a look at the current U.S. drought monitor compared to two months ago. We’ve gone from “extreme” and “exceptional” drought to “abnormally dry” and “moderate.”
The rain the past week and, especially, the last month (there HAS been rain!) brought us improvement, but only temporarily.
Here’s the rainfall this year, and you can see that we’re still running a deficit of 7″ to 17″ of rainfall. Of course, this past summer was brutal.
And this was on the heels of a 2022 drought. I blogged about that last year.
And that’s the problem. If you look at last year and this year, we need a lot of rain to get us back to a non-drought status. Across Harris County and to the coast we could use more than 11″ in a 30-day period:
Across the state, west and south don’t need as much, but keep in mind that their topography is already very dry and desert-like. Their water needs to solve a drought are not as deep as ours! From the Hill Country to the Piney Woods, 6-10″ of rain is needed.
The American model the next 16 days does bring in a few bouts of rain, but total accumulation for all these rainy periods is only estimated to be between 2-3″.
By the way, you may notice that on Thanksgiving Day the newest model actually forecasts RAIN despite the sunny forecast we’ve had all week. We may be in for a juicier turkey than we’ve been hoping for, so we’ll keep watching and tracking! Have a great weekend and enjoy the Zoo lights, Ice Land in Galveston, or whatever gets you in the spirit of the holiday!
Frank
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