A string of storms last week brought flooding, dangerous winds and damaging hail to Austin.
They also brought much needed rain.
While the region remains deep in drought, the precipitation resulted in something the city has not seen in almost a year: a month of above-average rainfall. Meteorologists say that late spring rainfall will impact temperatures and humidity going into the summer.
The storms “tipped us over the scale for the month of May,” Mary Wasson, a meteorologist for the San Antonio Express-News and Houston Chronicle, told KUT News. “May is our wettest month, but most of [this] May was super dry until that last week.”
The week brought about 5 inches of rain to Austin’s Camp Mabry weather station, which had seen only about an inch and a half of precipitation in May up to that point.
By the end of the month, 6.5 inches had fallen at Camp Mabry, above the May average of 5 inches. It was the first month at Mabry to record above-average rainfall since July, according to National Weather Service data.
Spring averages and lake levels up, but drought remains
When it comes to weather forecasting and climate research, March through May are considered “meteorological spring.” So the late May storms also pushed Austin's spring rainfall totals — which had been discouragingly low — closer to something like average.
Wasson says this spring now ranks 50th in 128 years of recordkeeping when it comes to the amount of rain that fell.
Austin’s two main water reservoirs also saw some benefit from the rainfall. The water levels in Lakes Travis and Buchanan have both increased over a foot since the storms.
But the lakes are still significantly lower than they were this time last year, currently sitting about 49% full.
Due to low lake levels, Stage 2 drought restrictions remain in place in Austin. Those restrictions, including rules around outdoor watering, aim to reduce water usage from the Highland Lakes by 20%.
The Highland Lakes were last full in 2019, and experts say a complete rebound from drought is still a long way off.
Recent storms "will hardly put a dent in much, given the severity of this long term drought," Mack Morris with the National Weather Service in New Braunfels wrote to KUT. "But it certainly helps with short term stuff."
Keeping back the 100s?
In the short term, meteorologists say, late spring rains will likely help push back the arrival of triple digits, as the sun’s energy goes to burning off soil moisture rather than heating the earth.
“This week, we're looking at highs only in the 90s, despite some of that heat trying to creep back in,” Wasson said. “Our normal [high temperature] this time of year is in the low 90s. So we’re not going to be too far away from that.”
But that soil moisture also increases humidity and can push the “feels like” temperature much higher.
“It's a double-edged sword,” Morris told KUT last month. “If you have more rain, you have more moisture in the soil, and you have higher humidity, so your heat indices will probably be higher in June.”
