August rains tie record
MARK GOODSON/THE HIGHLANDER SPORTS EDITOR
Tesha Tepper wraps up in rain gear at Marble Falls Mustang Stadium on Saturda, Aug. 26. The same storms that delayed the game's end to 2:10 a.m. the next morning added to totals that equal the last record for the month, set in 1914.
By Alexandria Randolph
Highland Lakes Newspapers
August was a wet month for the Highland Lakes, and State Climatologists said record-setting rainfall may not be over.
Preliminary totals indicate that August averaged about 5.69 inches of rain statewide, in a tie with 1914 for the wettest August on record, according to figures from the State Climatologist office at Texas A&M University.
John Nielsen-Gammon, professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M who also serves as State Climatologist, said the wet month was due to an atmospheric wind pattern that pumped lots of deep, moist tropical air into Texas.
The wet months could continue for a while, he notes.
“September and October are historically among the wettest months of the year in Texas, so if normal conditions continue, we will see several more inches of rain,” he explained.
Just since mid-August, the Lower Colorado River Authority reported rainfall totals in the Highland Lakes as follows:
Burnet, 5.78; Buchanan Dam, 1.60; Bertram, 4.48; Marble Falls, 5.52; Backbone Creek at Marble Falls, 4.73; Honey Creek near Kingsland, 6.93; Spicewood, 4.50; Round Mountain, 4.13; Sandy Creek near Kingsland, 3.59; Kingsland, 5.49; Tow, 2.64; Cow Creek near Lago Vista, 3.98.
The rainfall over the month of August has kept area lakes at high capacity. As of Wednesday afternoon, Lake Buchanan was at 1,017.75 feet mean sea level, seven feet above the history August average, and has maintained this level over the past month. The lake currently stores 826,468 acre-feet, or 94 percent of capacity.
Lake Travis is at 681.12 ft msl, nearly 20 feet over it's historic August average of 663.92 ft msl. It gained 2.1 ft msl over the month of August. The lake currently stores 1,137,275 acre-feet, and is at 100 percent capacity.
The LCRA predicts that lake levels for both Buchanan and Travis will only drop .1 ft msl over the next week.
“If a tropical storm or hurricane stalls over Texas – September is the peak month for such storms – then we would be at risk for serious flooding since most of the ground is already saturated,” Nielsen-Gammon said.
