Texas drought conditions expand while surface water recovery from El Niño lags

AMARILLO, Texas (KAMR/KCIT) – The Texas Water Development Board reported on Tuesday that after four weeks in a row of expansion, a quarter of the state of Texas was experiencing drought conditions at the start of April.

As noted by the TWDB’s most recent “Water Weekly” report, drought conditions contracted by almost 20% in January, but have been slowly and notably expanding across Texas since mid-February. The TWDB reported that as of Tuesday, Texas drought conditions stood at 25% compared to 24% the previous week, 39% three months ago, and 67% one year ago.

In the Texas Panhandle, “moderate drought” conditions remained in the far southwestern counties and also saw notable expansion in the northeastern Ochiltree and Lipscomb counties.

This comes after drought conditions mostly disappeared in East Texas but re-emerged in the northeast portion of the Texas Panhandle in recent weeks.

The TWDB also provided notes on the impact of El Niño weather conditions on Texas’ surface water supply storage levels during its last few cycles. While officials noted that the El Niño event during the winter of 2018-2019 brought a return to normal surface water supply storage conditions by early October, recovery during the 2014-2015 El Niño cycle was delayed until late May.

Water supply recovery trends after the most recent 2023-2024 cycle have continued to trail behind the recovery in 2018-2019, said the TWDB, and appear to be more similar to those in 2014-2015.

As previously reported on MyHighPlains.com, drought conditions across the Texas Panhandle and High Plains have also been forecasted as likely to worsen through the spring season as the most recent El Niño cycle comes to an end and shifts into a neutral and then La Niña phase. The most recent seasonal drought outlook from the National Weather Service was noted to anticipate a “large expansion” of drought across the Panhandle, West and Central Texas areas by the end of June.

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