AUSTIN, Texas — It's Thursday, and that means a new drought monitor has been released. But if you're looking for changes locally, you won't find any increase or decrease in drought.
From a statewide perspective, we've had an increase in areas under the "abnormally dry" category by around 1%, and a decrease of areas not in drought by that same margin. The "moderate" drought saw an increase of less than 1%, mostly in the Panhandle, but the "severe" drought dropped slightly statewide as well. The two highest drought categories remained the same.
This monitor does not account for the rains associated with Tropical Storm Alberto. That rainfall did not factor into this week's drought monitor because the cutoff time for this week was Tuesday at 7 a.m.
However, that rainfall will factor into next week's drought monitor. With that said, we saw some good healthy rainfall totals with some areas in the Hill Country and the Austin metro area, getting around 1 to 2 inches of rain with some isolated rain totals getting higher than that. This could bode well for the Pedernales River and eventually Lake Travis, which currently sits at 42% full.
It's important to note that there is a separate tropical system that could pop up in the same Bay of Campeche that Alberto formed. And while the chances of this bringing in moisture to us locally are low, it is still possible and we're tracking a 10% rain chance for Monday as a result.
Stick with KVUE for the latest as we track an update on the drought improvements locally.
Your seven-day outlook is below.
