Alarm Stage II Drought continues; conditions worsen

Alarm Stage II Drought
Lovelady water depth: 180.8 ft
Barton Springs discharge: 31 cfs*


*As of this posting the daily value is reported to be 36 cfs; however our manual measurements and historical data suggest this is too high. Estimates were made by the District to provide more accurate numbers. We have made the USGS aware of this issue and we anticipate the USGS making a manual measurement and revising the data on their website soon.

Alarm Stage Drought Continues

Drought Status: Alarm Stage II
Barton Springs Flow: 34.4 cfs (10-day average)
Lovelady Water Level: 178.9 ft

Despite the much-needed rainfall today of up to 2 inches, the aquifer remains in Alarm Stage drought. The rainfall will do a lot to help vegetation, and perhaps reduce some pumping for irrigation, but much more rainfall is needed to bring us out of drought. Today's rain will bump up springflow temporarily, but the flows will quickly return to the low levels seen before today's rainfall.

You may have noticed that the springflow values reported by the District on our Drought Chart is about 2-3 cfs lower than what is reported as provisional data from the USGS (the USGS data is also shown on our website graphic). That is because numerous manual measurements tell us that the gage at Barton Springs is likely reporting higher than actual values by about 2-3 cfs.