INCREDIBLE TEXAS DROUGHT STATISTICS

[vbhoutex]

Report form Jeff Lindner:

1 Year Ago (Drought update, incredible stats‏

Texas on the verge of its drought of record!

As we reach the 1 year mark of the current drought, the severity of what has happened and the impacts on water supply, fire weather, and vegetation is now being realized.

We are at or rapidly approaching conditions that we have never faced before in the state of Texas with respect to water supply, fire weather, and vegetation loss.

The City of Houston has recorded 11.94 inches of rainfall since Jan 1, which is nearly what El Paso records in a given year. Essentially we have placed our semi-tropical climate and its vegetation in El Paso’s climate which is semi-arid.

The current Drought Monitor (attached below) shows an astounding 85% of the state of Texas in exceptional drought and 96% in either exceptional or extreme drought. Rainfall deficits are now approaching 30-35 inches across SE TX for the last 12 months. Since January 1,2011 the City of Houston has recorded 11.94 inches of rainfall and with 2011 75% over this is only about 25% of our yearly rainfall.

February 1 to Sept 26 rainfall (driest ever by far for IAH, Hobby, College Station):

COLLEGE

HOUSTON HOBBY STATION

6.89 2011 8.73 2011 9.61 2011

13.93 1917 14.60 1956 10.47 1925

15.89 1930 16.50 1954 11.77 1988

15.95 1956 16.77 1931 13.23 1937

16.69 1925 18.15 1998 13.37 1917

Since February 1, the City of Houston has only recorded 23% of its normal rainfall!

Note: For BUSH IAH to move to 2nd place a staggering 7.04 inches of rainfall would be required and for Hobby 5.89 inches. This is an incredible record.

Rainfall Departures from October 1, 2010 to September 26, 2011 are:

Bellville: -26.85

Brenham: -26.45

College Station: -23.85

Columbus: -27.61

Conroe: -29.94

Crockett: -21.53

Danevang: -22.29

Galveston: -21.16

Freeport: -29.77

Hobby: -29.38

BUSH IAH: -28.82

Huntsville: -31.14

Katy: -26.94

Livingston: -32.33

Madisonville: -28.80

Matagorda: -28.46

Tomball: -35.50

Victoria: -26.73

Corpus Christi: -18.94

Rainfall Departures since Hurricane Ike:

BUSH IAH: -28.97

Hobby Airport: -34.55

College Station: -27.85

Galveston: -41.87

Livingston: -43.28

Richmond: -38.51

Wharton: -34.46

September 23, 2010 to September 22, 2011 is now the driest 12 month period ever for the following locations:

Note by how much the previous record dry year was exceeded by, these are incredible records showing the gravity of this drought.

Tomball: 12.44 in (previous driest was 22.15 inches in 1960-61, record smashed by 9.71 in)

Bellville: 12.75 in (previous driest was 19.90 inches in 1987-88, record exceeded by 7.15 in)

Columbus: 14.84 in (previous driest was 17.57 inches in 1955-56, record exceeded by 2.13 in)

Conroe: 17.42 in (previous driest was 22.51 inches in 1924-25, record exceeded by 5.09 in)

BUSH IAH: 17.71 in (previous driest was 23.25 inches in 1917-18, record exceeded by 5.54 in)

Katy: 14.67 in (previous driest was 27.31 inches in 1987-88, record smashed by 12.64 in) WOW

Livingston: 17.77 in (previous driest was 31.35 inches in 1947-48, record smashed by 13.58 in) WOW

The City of Houston has gone 241 days straight days between 1.0 inch rainfall events (the previous record was 192 days in 1917-1918). The last time the city recorded 2.0 inches of rainfall in a day was September 7th, 2010 during the landfall of TS Hermine (380 days ago)!

Fire Weather Impacts:

As we now approach the new fire season, conditions will be ripe for significant wildfire development and spread. Wildfire conditions are the worst ever experienced across the state of Texas. Since 11/15/2010 a total of 3.8 million acres have burned (2.1 million was the old record in 2006). A total of 21,526 wildfires have burned across the state with an astounding 6,919 structures lost and 48,252 structures threatened but saved. Over 2,000 homes burned over the Labor Day Weekend alone across the state and the Bastrop Complex Fire is now the most costliest and destructive fire in the history of the state of TX. Agencies from all 50 states have responded to the state of TX to help battle the wildfires. Vegetation greenness compared to normal is only about 50% across the state and even the traditionally native vegetation such as Cedar trees are showing significant drought stress making conditions extremely flammable. Wildfires burning in eastern Texas have destroyed a total of 175 million cubic feet of timber valued at over 97 million dollars which is worth about 1.6 billion dollars in forest products. The Riley Rd fire alone burned over 20.8 million cubic feet of timber valued at 12.8 million dollars worth 191 million dollars of forest products.

A Federal Disaster Declaration has been issued for the following counties due to the recent wildfires: Bastrop, Colorado, Houston, Leon, Travis, Williamson, Gregg, Grimes, Montgomery, Walker, Waller, Cass, Marion, Harrison, Smith, and Upshur.

Since the Labor Day weekend fires, The American Red Cross has served 43,963 snacks, 14,977 meals, and sheltered 879 residents in 7 shelters across the state.

The outlook into the fall and winter months will feature elevated to at times very critical fire weather days. Passage of cold fronts will result in high end Red Flag Warning days. Fires over the last month have exhibited extreme growth and behavior as ladder and canopy fuels have dried resulting in the fast forward spread of crown fires (not common in Texas). These fires are extremely devastating as they burn fast and hot through the tree tops and are nearly unstoppable.

1000 hr fuel (large fuels, trees, ladder fuels) was around 17% even with the recent rains! An inch of rainfall on any given day will only buy the area about 1-3 days of reduced fire threat and this is mainly in the finer fuels (grasses). It would require steady rain over the next 4-6 weeks to bring greenness and reduce the dryness in the heavy fuels (tree canopies and latter fuels).

KBDI values continue in the 700-800 range across the region with Colorado County having a value of 787. At a value of 800, the top 8 inches of soil is completely devoid of moisture and all vegetation rooted in that layer will begin to die. Bastrop County had a value of 789 prior to the Bastrop Complex fire.

Agriculture Impacts:

A total of 2.9 million acres of TX ranchland has burned this year with 5,500 miles of fence lost and 1133 head of cattle killed due to fire. More than 152.1 million dollars has been lost on agriculture due to wildfires. Based on data from Texas A&M even if rains returned now, the damage to the grasslands will take years to repair and is some cases the grasses will not recover. Hay is no longer able to be made locally and is selling for 170 dollars per ton compared to 12 dollars last year. Livestock can no longer be supported without supplemental feed and water. Most cattle are being sold. Around the Victoria area, soil moisture remains at or below 10%. Based on current conditions winter wheat if germinated will likely fail resulting in total losses.

Vegetation:

The extremely dry conditions combined with the incredible heat over the past 3 months has resulted in the loss of at least 2.5 million trees across the Houston and surrounding area. Hard hit has been The Woodlands and Conroe where canopies are by some estimated up to 20% dead. In the City of Houston Parks and Right of Ways alone 9330 trees have died. It is estimated that over the next 2 years a total of 66-90 million trees will die from the current drought (10-12 times the amount killed by Hurricane Ike) or about 10-15% of the total tree canopy in this area. Based on the current rate of loss and expected losses, the overall appearance of the landscape will be changed. The counts and estimates are likely on the low side due to preliminary estimates and some estimates put the losses already at 10% of the total canopy coverage especially in Montgomery and Walker counties. The damage to the tree canopy is nearly similar to a prolonged category 3 hurricane sitting over the area for weeks.

Water Supply:

Lake levels continue to decline across the region due to strong demand and strong evaporation over the past several months along with declining inflows. Lake Conroe has now reached its lowest pool level since the lake was built of 194.95 feet (old record was 196.0ft). State wide the total storage capacity stands at 64% or 19.985 million acre feet (normal would be around 31.42 million acre feet). During the month of August 2011 the state wide capacity fell to its historical low since 1978 and the decline continues. Lake Houston has stabilized due to releases from Lake Conroe. With inflow from rivers now nearly dry, there is no longer much if any water replenishing area water supply lakes.

A total of 613 jurisdictions have mandatory water restrictions in place and an additional 295 have voluntary.

Lake levels below conservation pool and current capacity on Sept 26:

Lake Conroe: -5.80 (75%)

Lake Houston: -7.30 (61%)

Lake Buchanan: -29.02 (41%)

Lake Travis: -50.95 (38%)

Toledo Bend: -11.29 (61%)

Lake Livingston: -3.40 (84%)

Lake Somerville: -9.60 (42%)

Lake Georgetown: -23.90 (38%)

Sam Rayburn: -12.55 (58%)

Lake Texana: -11.07 (46%)

Lake Travis is currently approaching its record low level (drought of record) and is around 629.5 ft. Inflows into Lake Travis for 2011 have been less than 10% of average and for the months of July and August an astounding 1% of average. Total inflows into Lake Travis last week were 19cfs! On average from Jan-Aug the Highland Lakes chain receive about 885,400 acre feet of water, this year they have received 74,061 acre feet of water (that is incredible). The combined storage of both Lakes Travis and Buchanan is 41% and is forecast to fall to 32-34% by the start of 2012 should significant rainfall not develop. In other words the current storage of 790,000 acre feet is forecast to decline toward 620,000 acre feet by early 2012 (621,000 acre feet) is the drought of record for the Highland Lakes storage. A astounding 170,000 acre feet of water has evaporated this year from the Highland Lakes. 1 acre foot equals 325,851 gallons.

Current Stream Flows:

San Bernard River at Boling: 9.2cfs

Pedernales River at Fredericksburg: .91cfs

Trinity River at Crockett: 694 cfs

Lavaca River at Edna: .84 cfs

Navidad River: DRY

Guadalupe River at Comfort: 11 cfs

Colorado River at San Saba: 4.3 cfs

W Fork of San Jacinto near Huntsville: DRY

Bedias Creek at Madisonville: DRY

Llano River at Llano: 27 cfs

Navasota River at Easterly: 11 cfs

Harris County:

Willow Creek at Tomball: 1.9 cfs

Cypress Creek at Katy Hockley: DRY

Little Cypress Creek at Rosehill: DRY

Langham Creek at W Little York: 1.5 cfs

White Oak Bayou at Alabonson: 16 cfs

Lt White Oak Bayou at Trimble: 3.6 cfs

Hunting Bayou at Lockwood: 1.7 cfs

Greens Bayou at I-45: 20 cfs

Clear Creek at Mykawa: 4.8 cfs

Cedar Bayou at Crosby: DRY

Luce Bayou at Huffman: DRY

Spring Creek at Tomball: DRY

Spring Creek at I-45: 15 cfs

Goose Creek at Baker Rd: .54 cfs

White Oak Bayou at Heights: 25 cfs

Brays Bayou at Belle Park: 13 cfs

Sims Bayou at Hiram Clarke: 1.4 cfs

Even if normal rainfall were to return this fall and winter, which appears unlikely, water supplies are likely to be at or lower than current levels right now going into next spring and summer.

Summer Heat:

The summer of 2011 will go down as the hottest ever for the state of Texas surpassing the summer of 1980. The average August monthly temperature for the City of Houston of 90.4 degrees made August 2011 the warmest month ever for the city. The average August monthly temperature is around 83 degrees. The incredible heat in August of 2011 has been suggested to have been about a 1 in 10,000 year event for the city. Every day of the month reached or exceeded 100 degrees except for 1 day. This astounding record was a result on both very warm afternoon highs, but also exceptionally warm overnight lows. Many of the records set this summer will stand for a very long time!

Number of days above 100 for 2011 (and the old record):

BUSH IAH: 47 ( 32 in 1980)

Hobby: 18 (13 in 1998/200)

Conroe: 53 (42 in 1998)

Huntsville: 72 (43 in 1980)

College Station: 69 (58 in 1917)

Dallas: 62 (69 in 1980)

Waco: 79 (63 in 1980)

Austin Mabry: 87 (69 in 1925)

San Antonio: 56 (59 in 2009)

Del Rio: 83 (78 in 1953)

On average BUSH IAH would record 4, 100 degree days, in a year and College Station 12!

Forecast:

With La Nina conditions having redeveloped over the central Pacific, the forecast for warmer than average temperatures and drier than average rainfall is expected through the fall into next spring. ENSO climate models should the current cold phase lasting into the middle of next summer. Research into other sea surface trends which appear to be strongly related to severe southern plains drought suggest that Texas has entered into an extended period of potential drought conditions similar to that of the 1910’s and mid 1800’s. While not every year is a severe drought, the potential for severe long lasting droughts, multi-year droughts, and frequent drought tend to be related to the current sea surface anomalies noted in the Atlantic and these patterns tend to amplify the La Nina dry pattern over TX. This appears to be the underlying cause of the dryness and drought across TX since 2000...but the scale of the current drought and the intense severity is nearly unprecedented along with the widespread nature of the event. It would be hard to imagine the next year following such incredible dryness as 2011 has produced, but the current drought will take months if not years of normal to above normal rainfall to end.

[jasons2k]

Hard hit has been The Woodlands and Conroe where canopies are by some estimated up to 20% dead

Up here in The Woodlands I think it's closer to the 30% range or higher - at least in the natural areas that are not irrigated. One of the entrances to The Woodlands at Research Forest & I-45 has a big stand of old growth oaks and pines behind the big black "The Research Forest" sign and every single tree is dead. It won't look the same in my lifetime