outlook+water: Most of the state in drought, La Niña remains, and an interesting hurricane season

SUMMARY:

• Drought conditions (D1–D4) increased to 54% of the state from 33% four weeks ago; statewide reservoir storage increased to 74.2% full from 73.9% four weeks ago, about 6 percentage points below normal for this time of year.
• We remain under a La Niña Advisory with a 61% chance of La Niña conditions continuing into the January–through–March season.
• Most of the state is projected to be in drought over the next three months.

I wrote this article on December 1, 2025

As of November 30, the Atlantic Hurricane Season is officially over, and the United States avoided suffering (or benefiting…) from a hurricane landfall. Only one tropical storm, Chantal, wandered ashore in the US in South Carolina. Tropical Storm Barry found the shoreline just south of Tampico, Mexico, but it didn’t benefit reservoir levels in Amistad or Falcon. However, Barry’s remnants were a key part of the flooding in the upper Guadalupe River Basin in early July.

It was an odd season. We saw three Cat-5 hurricanes, second to the four in 2005, but also saw long stretches of no activity, including a 20-day stretch at the peak of the season. A total of 13 named storms formed, with five becoming hurricanes, and four of those strengthening into major hurricanes (Category 3 or higher). The season was a bit quieter than most projections.

Hurricane Melissa became the strongest land-falling hurricane on record in the Atlantic. The ratio of Category 4 or 5 hurricanes to all hurricanes was the highest on record (80%), beating the 67% in the 1930s. And the ACE (accumulated cyclonic energy) per hurricane was the highest on record.

Some information from Michael Lowry and Roger Pielke, Jr.

Except for several streaks of five or more inches in small parts of Central and East Texas, most of us saw less than two inches of rain in November (Figure 2a). Except in the central region, the state saw less than normal amounts of rainfall (Figure 2b).

The amount of the state under drought conditions (D1–D4) increased from 33% four weeks ago to 54% today (Figure 3a), with degradation (and some improvements in the El Paso area) across the state (Figure 3b). Extreme drought or worse rose to 6% of the state from 4% four weeks ago, while exceptional drought remained at 0.15% (Figure 3a). In all, 86% of the state is abnormally dry or worse (D0–D4; Figure 3a), up from 77% four weeks ago.

The North American Drought Monitor, which runs two months behind current conditions, shows continued drought in the American Southwest and along the Rio Grande through Texas-Mexico  (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, is mostly out of drought (Figure 4a). That giant blob of drought in the American Southwest is troubling since it portends larger, more systematic conditions that could spill over into the land of Tex-Mex. 

Conservation storage in Elephant Butte Reservoir—an important water source for the El Paso area—increased to 5.6% full from 4.3% four weeks ago (Figure 4b), about 17 percentage points below a rather pitiful median storage of 18% full. Current levels in the reservoir are flirting with lows not seen in at least 35 years.

Combined conservation storage in the Amistad and Falcon reservoirs decreased slightly from 26.6% full four weeks ago to 26.5% full today, about 30 percentage points below normal 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 up from 73.9% full four weeks ago to 74.2% today, about 6 percentage points below normal for this time of year (Figure 5b). The reservoir marked in reddish-orange in the Dallas-Fort Worth area (the persimmon in a sea of blueberries) is New Terrell City Lake (Figure 5c). The lake is no longer used for water supply and appears to be undergoing long-term maintenance work.

My (drumroll, please) “Hydrograph of the Month” is for the reservoirs in Region L (Figure 5d), which were at historic low levels before the rains in July brought some water to Canyon Lake.  Notably (and alarmingly), the recovery did not raise reservoir storage levels above the previous historic lows in 2015.

We continue to be under a La Niña Advisory (that is, La Niña is here) for the fall-winter season (Figure 6a), with a 61% chance of La Niña conditions continuing into the January-March season (Figure 6b). This La Niña is projected to be a weak one, but it sure seems to be affecting our weather (and the projections thereof).

The new U.S. Seasonal Drought Outlook shows drought remaining and developing through February across much of Texas, with some improvement along the Gulf Coast (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 below-normal rainfall across most of the state south of the Red River region (Figure 7c).