Drought to Flooding- June 6, 2016

Notice the photo to the right. It shows the entrance to a local park on Lake Travis. The ticket booth has been removed from the park entrance and water covers most of the parking area. The lower parking lot, just over the hill, has been closed for several days and is completely under water.

As of today, Lake Travis is 121% full. Boat ramps have been submerged for days. Park signs are barely visible in the distance as waters grow deeper each day. Water is still running off of the surrounding hills and into the lake thus lake levels may increase further. No rain is expected in the next few days and temperatures will approach the nineties this week.

Lake Travis was less than 50% full before it began to rain. The area watering restrictions had increased to Level Three with one day of watering during restricted hours. Beautiful homes on the lake lost value as the lake receded. Short trees emerged from the shrinking water and grew tall where lake water once flowed. The entire terrain changed and became overgrown over time. Parks around the lake became unkempt as park maintenance stopped. No fees were being charged by the parks due to closed boat ramps.

2016 Has been a year of rain. El Niño has provided wet weather for several months! The end of May and beginning of June produced many Spring storms and torrential rains. Several storms provided rain totals of several inches in just a few hours. As a result, a lot of water has moved down through our Lake system. It still remains to be seen what record levels from the past will be broken.

The rise in Lake Travis water levels will most likely end this week. The increasing levels have slowed. Drier weather is forecast for the week and four gates in the Mansfield dam are open and releasing water. As of June 6, Lake Buchanan is still releasing water to maintain its 94% full level. Excess water continues to move down the lake system into Lake Travis. At 8:30 a.m. this morning, all recreational boating was banned on Lake Travis and all lakes South of Lake Buchanan. Local officials are concerned about high lake levels, water quality and the increasing amount of debris in the water. These two factors could prove to be dangerous to boaters.

Wet weather is forecast for next weekend. Look here for future updates.