National Weather Service
9 a.m. update: Some rain has already fallen in the Austin metro area, National Weather Service radar shows. While the rain clouds have passed, more rain is expected throughout the day today, especially this evening.
Earlier: All of Central Texas is under a flash flood watch today through 9 a.m. Friday, the National Weather Service said.
Through this afternoon, the Austin metro area could get 2-4 inches of rain with up to 6 inches in some pockets, the service said.
Then, another round of heavy rainfall is expected this evening into Friday morning as a cold front moves through the area, the service said. Generally, another 1-3 inches of rainfall is expected, but the area along and east of the Interstate 35 corridor may get up to 6 inches of rain.
This area has already seen significant rainfall over the last few weeks, so rain runoff could result in rapid flash flooding, the service said.
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Northbound south MoPac on Thursday morning. (Jay Janner / American-Statesman
After big win, does Central Texas owe the rice farmers?
In case you missed it, yesterday a significant drought-related decision came from the state’s top environmental regulators. They approved a plan intended to keep more water in lakes Travis and Buchanan — bodies of water which are not only good for boating, fishing and swimming, but are the main reservoirs for a million Central Texans.
Those lakes also supply significant amounts of water for rice farmers in South Texas. And the rice farmers and Austin-area interests have been having a years-long tug of war about who should get how much water. Austin says that during droughts it needs all the water it can get to ensure it has enough for drinking and its economy; the rice farmers counter that they’re producing food, and that the Austin area needs to get better at conserving water.
Long story short, the Austin area just won. Big. The state approved a management plan that makes the rice farmers far more likely to be cut off during drought, thus keeping more water in Travis and Buchanan. Perhaps that will help avert the kind of stark visuals we saw at the height of the drought, when the combined storage of Travis and Buchanan was less than a third full, and limestone that had been underwater for decades was exposed. (A couple of years ago I found a pop-top can of Olympia Beer at Lake Travis that I think was from the 1970s.)
A lot of Central Texas officials say that a huge release of water in 2011 to the rice farmers was responsible for those stark visuals, or at least contributed significantly to the water worries. The policies that were in place for managing the lakes created a “managerial drought, just by following the plan,” Austin-area state Sen. Kirk Watson said.
In a twist, most of the rice farmers actually, albeit relunctantly, signed off on the new water-management plan, along with other downstream interests, including environmentalists worried about the health of Matagorda Bay. Basically, it could’ve been worse for them. According to reporting by my colleague Asher Price, the downstream interests appear to be trying to cultivate relationships with the Austin area, as opposed to fighting it. One reason: to secure financial support for reservoirs that help protect their crops.
Think of it this way: with the deluges in Central Texas, a lot of water simply coursed down the Lower Colorado River into the ocean. If some of that water had been diverted into reservoirs, it could have been saved for use by the rice farmers when they want water but can’t get it because Central Texas is in a drought.
Here’s the catch: building reservoirs is expensive. So who should payWatson, a strong advocate for keeping more water in Travis and Buchanan, said it’s time to start having those discussions. After all, the Lower Colorado River Authority, which manages the river’s bounty, has an obligation to protect all of its customers.
“We need to be having serious conversations about how you finance (reservoirs) in way that’s fair, for everyone,” Watson said.
