AUSTIN, Texas — A new drought monitor was released Thursday. As expected, drought conditions have worsened across the Lone Star State, especially in Central Texas, where the Hill Country is now almost entirely under "exceptional" drought, the highest level on the drought scale.
In fact, all of the KVUE viewing area is under either "exceptional" or "extreme" – the second-highest level – drought. This is the first time that Austin has been in the exceptional drought category since Aug. 23, 2022, almost exactly one year ago.
It's important to note that while we did receive rain in some parts of the KVUE viewing area on Tuesday – especially in the Austin metro and points to the south – as a result of the outer bands of then-Tropical Storm Harold, that rainfall was not counted in the weekly drought monitor. The cutoff point for data collection is 8 a.m. ET/7 a.m. CT every Tuesday, and the rain didn't fall until Tuesday afternoon.
Instead, the rain recorded will be counted towards next Thursday's drought monitor, as will any rain that might fall this weekend in the KVUE viewing area.
Speaking of, we have multiple rain chances in store for the weekend and early next week, with the highest slated to come on Tuesday as a weak "less hot" front slides in from the north and somewhat stalls through Monday night.
Model data is torn on rainfall amounts. While the European model has been less optimistic, with some areas getting merely a few hundredths of an inch, the American GFS model is a bit more bullish on good beneficial rain, with some areas possibly getting up to a half an inch.
However, this is still four to five days out, so there's still time to hash out the details of the amounts and the exact timing.
Stick with KVUE weather as we continue to hash out the details of this developing forecast.
In the meantime, your 7-day outlook is below:
