Drought Continues Despite Recent Rains

Before we had the rounds of thunderstorms in recent weeks, the big stories were the intense drought in Texas and the subsequent wildfires.  Several thousand acres have burned across our state with severe drought making up more than half of the state's land.

So now that we've had more rainfall in late April and May, is the drought over?  Not yet.  According to NOAA, we would still need several inches of rain in the next month to alleviate the drought in Texas.  This is dependent on the soil moisture across the state and the time of year.  As we grow deeper into Spring and then Summer, more and more moisture evaporates from the ground because of the sun angle and our position in relation to the sun.

At first glance it looks like West Texas is in better shape than the rest of the shape.  But they are bad shape like much of the other parts of the state...it just takes less rain to get the appropriate soil moisture levels there than our part of Texas.  But in East Texas, there is severe to exceptional drought underway and given how much more water their soils can handle, they need more rainfall to help it end.