outlook+water: Coal in December, our weak La Niña remains (but for how long?), and a hot-hot-hot start to 2026

SUMMARY:

• Drought conditions (D1–D4) increased to 57% of the state, up from 54% four weeks ago; statewide reservoir storage decreased to 73.5% full, down from 74.2% four weeks ago, about 7 percentage points below normal for this time of year.
• We remain under a La Niña Advisory with a 75% chance of La Nada (neutral) conditions arriving during the January–through–March season.
• December had brutally low rainfall; most of the state is projected to be in drought over the next three months.

I wrote this article on January 11, 2026                                

The winter has been a weird one. For example, I don’t think I’ve ever had the thought, during the first week of January, that it might be too hot to go for a walk at lunch (I went; it was, indeed, too hot). Thankfully, as I write this after a cold front passed, it’s clearly not too hot now.

It’s too early to see how 2025 stacked up against the record (at least in NOAA’s “Climate at a Glance”), so we’ll have to wait until next month for a full year-in-review. Houston saw more 90+ degree days in 2025 than in any previous year on record. It appears that 2025 was a warm one, but not as warm as 2024, which is the warmest on record. Last year is appearing as the second-warmest year on record in many Texas cities, so we’ll see what the statewide numbers show next month.

Statewide reservoir storage is starting off about the same as it did in 2025. Thankfully, Amistad and Falcon have more water in them than a year ago, but they remain nowhere near full. The Edwards Aquifer scarily remains in an elevated drought status across its footprint. Reservoirs in the Nueces River Basin (Figure 1) and the Guadalupe River Basin remain far below normal conditions.

The good news is that La Niña’s days appear numbered, with La Nada favored to arrive early this year and El Niño favored for late summer or early fall. However, this La Niña has not been a strong one, so current conditions may persist through the summer (and then who knows what the fall will really bring).

Except for the upper Gulf Coast, Santa Precipitation was brutally frugal with the rain, bringing the equivalent of coal to large swaths of the state (Figure 2a). Except for a few spits of blue, the entire state received less than normal amounts of rainfall, with most areas receiving less than 10% of normal (Figure 2b). 

The amount of the state under drought conditions (D1–D4) increased from 54% four weeks ago to 57% today (Figure 3a), with drought degradation across the state (Figure 3b). Extreme drought or worse rose to 9% of the state from 6% four weeks ago, with exceptional drought increasing from 0.15% four weeks ago to 0.36% today (Figure 3a). In all, 88% of the state is abnormally dry or worse (D0–D4; Figure 3a), up from 86% 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 source of water for the El Paso area—increased to 9.5% full from 5.6% four weeks ago (Figure 4b), about 12 percentage points below a rather pitiful median storage of 25 percent 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 increased from 26.5% full four weeks ago to 27.4% full today, about 30 percentage points below normal for this time of year (Figure 4c).

Basins across the state continue to host flows below the historical 25^th, 10^th, and 5^th percentiles over the past week, expanding considerably from last month (Figure 5a). Statewide reservoir storage is down from 74.2% full four weeks ago to 73.5% today, about 7 percentage points below normal for this time of year (Figure 5b). The reddish-orange reservoir 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 Sam Rayburn Reservoir (Figure 5d), which is in an usually low status. However, low lake levels appear to be due to work the U.S. Corps of Engineers is performing on the reservoir. 

We continue to be under a La Niña Advisory (that is, La Niña is here) for the winter season (Figure 6a) with a 75% chance of neutral conditions (La Nada) arriving during the January-March season (Figure 6b). The odds of an El Niño rise as we enter the summer, with a 60% of El Niño conditions arriving in late summer/early fall (Figure 6b).

The new U.S. Seasonal Drought Outlook shows drought remaining and developing through March over much of Texas (Figure 7a). The three-month temperature outlook indicates above-average temperatures for most of the state (Figure 7b), while the three-month precipitation outlook shows below-normal rainfall (Figure 7c).