It’s been a fairly dry year around San Antonio, with only 19.90 inches of rain recorded at San Antonio International Airport since January 1, 2020. This is nearly 11 inches below average for the Alamo City.
Del Rio is in need of rainfall, too. With only 11.42 inches of rainfall so far this year, the border town is experiencing a rainfall deficit of more than 7.5 inches.
Signs of drought in areas around Texas range from no drought at all in Houston, to exceptional in West Texas and extreme to severe in the San Antonio area.
So how does this impact our Texas lakes? The graph below shows the lake levels for some of the larger lakes in our area.
Medina Lake
Even though Medina Lake is only 43% full, it is notorious for fluctuations. After the devastating 2011 drought, Medina Lake dried up almost completely through 2015, leaving people skeptical if the lake would ever fill up again.
Meteorologist Justin Horne took a trip out to Medina Lake in 2014 to show the drastically low water levels which at times was only 3% full.
It wasn’t until heavy rainfall in May of 2016 that the Medina Lake level finally recovered. At the time, the Medina Lake Spillway overtopped as heavy rains fell across South Texas.
“Medina Lake has a small watershed and is used for agriculture, making it more susceptible to large fluctuations,” said Horne. “History has shown that all it takes is one or two big rain events in the right spot to fill it back up.”