LLANO, Texas — Heavy rain resulted in flooding Tuesday evening across parts of the Hill Country. An incredible 6 to 7 inches of rain fell across parts of Llano County in a several hour span.
This heavy rain caused excessive run off into the Llano River, which briefly crested in minor flood stage at over 10 feet Tuesday evening. The Llano River has since receded and fallen back below flood stage. As of early Wednesday morning, Sandy Creek at State Highway 71 near Kingsland is in the "action" stage.
In addition to the River Flood Warning, the Flash Flood Warning for the Llano area has been allowed to expire. Even after the expiration, there are still likely to be low water crossings and other flood prone spots that could be covered by water. Please continue to be very mindful if driving. Remember: turn around, don't drown.
The floodwaters that originated on the Llano are now flowing towards Lake LBJ. In addition to heavy flows on the Llano, there have also been floodwaters flowing through Big Sandy Creek, Walnut Creek and other smaller inflow sources for Lake LBJ.
Lake LBJ is not a reservoir lake and will not hold flood waters. From Lake LBJ, any excessive inflow will be passed through Wirtz Dam into Lake Marble Falls. Lake Marble Falls also acts as a passthrough lake, and any excess water there will be passed through Starcke Dam into Lake Travis.
Of course, Lake Travis is in desperate need of water. Levels have increased over the past 24 hours and the lake is at 48% capacity as of early Wednesday morning.
This is not the type of water inflow that will completely fill Lake Travis, but it's potentially enough to make small improvements we'll certainly take.
The LCRA partially opened a floodgate at both Wirtz and Starcke dams late Tuesday night. As of 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, the floodgate at Wirtz Dam has closed. The floodgate at Starcke Dam is expected to be closed by 11 a.m.
When large amounts of floodwaters surge into the Highland Lake chain, floodgates are utilized to pass the water downstream to either Lake Buchanan or Lake Travis – the two reservoir lakes for our KVUE area.
Wednesday and Thursday will feature much lower rain chances that are unlikely to cause any more flooding. The forecast by this weekend will be completely dry.
The KVUE Weather Team will continue to closely monitor this developing forecast.
In the meantime, the extended forecast can be found below:
