This month, Dr. Robert E. Mace explores academic publications on sequencing-based wastewater epidemiology, low-level cloud cover’s contributions to absorbed solar radiation, and a data-efficient approach for acoustic leak detection.
Author: Robert Mace
Robert Mace is the Executive Director and Chief Water Policy Officer at The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment and a Professor of Practice in the Department of Geography at Texas State University. Robert has over 30 years of experience in hydrology, hydrogeology, stakeholder processes, and water policy, mostly in Texas.
outlook+water: Coal in December, our weak La Niña remains (but for how long?), and a hot-hot-hot start to 2026
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.
outlook+water: Most of the state in drought, La Niña remains, and an interesting hurricane season
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.
outlook+water: La Niña is here, the second month the rain stopped, and drought and The Blob are coming for us all
Drought conditions (D1–D4) increased to 33% of the state, up from 24% four weeks ago; statewide reservoir storage decreased to 73.9% full, down from 75.6% four weeks ago, about 6 percentage points below normal for this time of year. We are now a La Niña Advisory with a 55% chance of La Niña conditions continuing into the January-March season. Most of the state is projected to be in drought over the next three months.
think+water: Hyporheic homebodies, hot and cloudy corals, and carbon sequestration
This month, Dr. Robert E. Mace explores academic publications on a hydrological whodunits about species sorting vs. dispersal limitation, a thirty-year marine soap opera (the villain: heat and cloudy water), and how listening to the rocks can teach us about carbon storage.