Central Texas Drought Persists Despite Heavy Rainfall

Even though there were big storms earlier this week, Central Texas is still in the middle of a long drought, and new data shows that things are getting worse in some places. Even though it rained in many places Tuesday night and Wednesday, especially east of I-35, the current drought monitor doesn't yet show that as progress.

To end the drought fully, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says that the Austin metro area and the Coastal Plains need more than 23 inches of extra rain over the next three months. The Hill Country needs just under 19 inches, which is a little less than the other areas.

Most of the area got between 2 and 3 inches of rain from the storms, and some places near La Grange in Fayette County got over 5 inches in one day. But even though this rain is nice, things still look bad. There isn't much chance of rain for the rest of the week, and experts say that there won't be any quick fixes.

This past week, the Coastal Plains were hit the hardest, with some places going from a "moderate" drought to a "severe" drought. For large parts of Central Texas, including parts of the Austin area, the drought is still extreme to exceptional.

Forecast models like the HRRR give us a small bit of hope for individual showers, but we still haven't found a way to help everyone. Some areas have been less affected by drought since the recent storms, but experts agree that it will take months of steady rain to fix the damage.

Until then, a lot of Central Texas will still be severely short on water and at high risk of fire because the drought is still going on.

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