CURRENT DROUGHT CONDITIONS in Texas and the United States
According to the United States Drought Monitor map for September 2, 2014, 87 percent of Texas is in some level of drought. Approximately 38 percent of Texas is in “Severe” or worse drought conditions, and 16 percent of Texas is in “Extreme” or “Exceptional Drought.”
(The U.S. Drought Monitor is jointly produced by the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Map courtesy of NDMC-UNL.)
Nationwide, drought conditions are mainly present in the western United States as shown on the U.S. Drought Monitor map below.
(The U.S. Drought Monitor is jointly produced by the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Map courtesy of NDMC-UNL.)
On August 29, 2014, Gov. Rick Perry renewed the Emergency Disaster Proclamation certifying that exceptional drought conditions pose a threat of imminent disaster in specified counties in Texas.
The ongoing drought continues to impact the Lower Colorado River Authority’s (LCRA) reservoirs. Current combined reservoir storage is about 702,626 acre-feet or about 35 percent full. If the reservoirs fall below 600,000 acre-feet of storage (30 percent capacity), LCRA plans to issue a declaration of Drought Worse than the Drought of Record. At which time, all interruptible agriculture customers would be cut off and all firm customers would be required to reduce water usage by 20 percent from pre-drought conditions.
Reservoir storage in Texas averages 64.2 percent full, with a range from 0.6 to 100 percent full.
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