Monday, November 5, 2012

Aquifer on the verge of drought

Drought Status: No Drought
Barton Springs: 38* cfs (10-day average)
Lovelady: 478.7 ft-msl (0.3 ft above its trigger)

The lack of rain has the drought indicators on the verge of crossing their respective drought triggers. It only takes one of the indicators to cross its threshold for the Board to make a declaration, however, it appears that both Barton Springs and the Lovelady well indicators will be beneath their respective triggers within a matter of a few days.

The Board of Directors will meet in mid-November and will discuss the drought and could make an official drought declaration. Alarm Stage (II) drought will trigger a 20% monthly reduction from normal water use.  The aquifer has been in a relatively good state compared to other water resources--we've been out of drought about 8 months, since March of this year. Although groundwater resources, and especially the Edwards, can lag behind surface water droughts as this one has, we the dryness has caught up to the Edwards too. When the declaration comes it will be lagging behind other agencies and water resources that are currently in one state of drought declaration or another. See previous blog for details on that.

Unfortunately, the El Nino system never developed and so we are in a neutral ENSO state and the forecast for rain is not promising according to the US Season Outlook.


*springflow is estimated due to some influence of construction or activities at Barton Springs Pool. Those estimates are based on the recession (rate of decline) and a correlation with Lovelady.

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