Drought in Real, Texas

Dry weather continued in July. Most of South Central Texas had less than normal rainfall with the Hill Country and I-35 corridor less than 25% of normal. The lack of rain made the drought worse across the region. Gillespie and Kerr Counties went from Extreme (D3) drought to Exceptional (D4) drought. Bandera, Burnet, Comal, Hays, and Llano went from Severe (D2) to D3. Travis and Williamson went from less than D2 to D3. Bastrop, Bexar, Caldwell, Guadalupe, Lee, and Uvalde went from less than D2 to D2. All other counties were unchanged: Kendall D4, Blanco D3, and Medina and Real D2. Area reservoirs continued to drop. Medina Lake fell 1.0 foot and was 84.7 feet below normal conservation pool level, Lake Buchanan was down 3.3 feet to 22.2 feet below normal, Lake Travis lost 1.9 feet to 45.7 feet below normal, and Canyon Lake was down 1.6 feet to 14.8 feet below normal. The Edwards Aquifer dropped 5.4 feet to 29.3 feet below normal. Most public water systems encouraged at least voluntary water restrictions and many had mandatory restrictions in effect. Some of the larger services had the following: Fredericksburg, Llano, and Georgetown Stage 3, San Antonio, Universal City, New Braunfels, and Kerrville Stage 2, Austin Stage 1. At the end of the month, the 7-day average streamflow was much below normal (<10%) on the Medina River, much below normal on the upper Guadalupe River, much below normal on the Medina River, normal (25%-75%) to below (10%-24%) normal on the San Antonio River, and below to much below on the Colorado River. Of the counties in D2 or worse drought Bandera, Bastrop, Blanco, Burnet, Caldwell, Comal, Gillespie, Guadalupe, Hays, Kendall, Kerr, Lee, Llano, Travis, and Williamson had outdoor burn bans in effect at the end of the month.