outlook+water: La Niña is here, drought about the same, next three months favor hot and dry

SUMMARY:

• Drought conditions (D1–D4) decreased slightly to 42% of the state from 44% four weeks ago; statewide reservoir storage increased slightly to 75% full, about 5 percentage points below normal for this time of year.
• La Niña is here, with a 60% chance of a return to neutral conditions by May.
• Drought is expected to remain and expand in the southern half of the state.

I wrote this article on February 2, 2025.

With 2024 over and 2025 upon us, let’s take a quick climatological look at last year and how it stacked up with previous ones!

If last year felt hotter than Hades, it’s because it was. Last year was the warmest year in the 130-year record for Texas (Figure 1a). It was also the warmest year on record for the country and the planet. Compared to a long-term global record developed using temperature proxies, 2024 was likely the warmest year in nearly 100,000 years. That’s hot (and not in a good way).

For statewide precipitation, we came in just above the long-term average (Figure 1b). However, the distribution of rainfall was not uniform, with wetter-than-normal conditions in the northeast and drier-than-normal conditions in the southwest (Figure 1c). Many of the drier-than-normal counties were drier than 90% of the years in the 130-year record (Figure 1d).

Although Texas didn’t see much action, the 2024 Atlantic Hurricane season was an active one with 18 named storms, 11 hurricanes, and 5 major hurricanes. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s projections in May of 17 to 25 named storms, 8 to 13 hurricanes, and 4 to 7 major hurricanes were spot-on. Colorado State University’s April projection of 23 named storms, 11 hurricanes, and 5 major hurricanes deserves a round of mocktails.

The persimmon seed accurately projected snow for Texas. 

Looking forward through 2025, it’s going to be hot (that’s pretty much guaranteed, at least until the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) runs amock…). The La Niña portends drier-than-normal conditions in the spring, but it’s a weak one, so who knows. The long-term El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) projections (which reach into late summer) indicate neutral conditions, although I found a super-long projection (surely too long) that suggests a return to La Niña conditions for the 2025-2026 winter. An experimental long-term tool suggests normal precipitation for this summer into early next spring (and warmer-than-normal conditions, of course). But I’ll take experiential over experimental that far out.

We got the Ye Olde Standard Texas Precipitation Pattern in January, with wetter conditions in the east and drier conditions in the west (Figure 2a). Although some parts of the state benefited from rain, almost the entire state saw less than normal rainfall (Figure 2b).

The amount of the state under drought conditions (D1–D4) decreased from 44% four weeks ago to 42% today (Figure 3a), with improvements in the northeastern part of the state and degradation over the Edwards Plateau, among other areas (Figure 3b). Extreme drought, or worse, increased from 13% of the state four weeks ago to 15.7% today, with exceptional drought remaining the same at 6.3% (Figure 3a). In all, 53% of the state is abnormally dry or worse (D0–D4; Figure 3a), down from 63% four weeks ago.

The North American Drought Monitor, which runs a month behind current conditions, shows drought across the North American continent (Figure 4a). The Rio Grande Basin north of Elephant Butte Reservoir is in pretty good shape (Figure 4a). The Rio Conchos basin in Mexico, which confluences with the Rio Grande just above Presidio and hosts the largest tributary to the Lower Rio Grande, remains in severe to exceptional drought (Figure 4a).

Conservation storage in Elephant Butte Reservoir—an important source of water for the El Paso area—increased from 9.6% four weeks ago to 11.7% more recently (Figure 4b), still about 15 percentage points below a rather pitiful median storage of 25% full.

Combined conservation storage in the Amistad and Falcon reservoirs increased slightly to 21.2% full from 20.7% four weeks ago and is almost 40 percentage points below normal for this time of year—the lowest in at least the past 33 years for this time of year (Figure 4c).

Basins across the state continue to host flows over the past week below the historical 25^th, 10^th, and 5^th percentiles (Figure 5a). Statewide reservoir storage is at 75.2% full, up about 400,000 acre-feet from 74.0% four weeks ago but about 5 percentage points below normal for this time of year (Figure 5b). The reservoir marked in orange in the Dallas-Fort Worth area (the persimmon in a sea of blueberries) is New Terrell City Lake and has dropped from full in early March 2024 (Figure 5c). The Lake is no longer used for water supply and appears to be undergoing maintenance work.

My (drumroll please) “Hydrograph of the Month” is Canyon Lake (again) due to crossing the less-than-fifty-percent full stage for the first time in its history since inundation (Figure 5d).

We are finally under a La Niña Advisory, albeit a weak and likely short one (Figure 6a). There is a 59% chance that La Niña conditions persist through the February-March-April season and a 60% chance of transitioning back to neutral conditions during the March-April-May season (Figure 6a, b).

The U.S. Seasonal Drought Outlook through April shows drought and drought development over the entire state, except for much of the High Plains and north and east Texas (Figure 7a). The three-month temperature outlook projects above-average temperatures for most of the state (Figure 7b), while the three-month precipitation outlook favors rainfall deficits for most of the state (Figure 7c).