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Where’s the water? 
Local drought since the last significant rains in May has exposed the bed of Granger Lake north of Taylor. While the lake is shallow under normal conditions, water has receded hundreds of yards away from the shore and the level is now less than five feet deep.
Photo by Jason Schaefer
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By JASON SCHAEFER Year-end drought moderate, 2009 projections grim Central Texas has had one of the driest years in history, and projections for next year don’t look good either. The U.S. Seasonal Drought Outlook, compiled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, projects the drought in the region extending from Burnet and Williamson counties southwest to the Rio Grande and southeast to the coast to persist or worsen between January and March. Total rainfall in Taylor for 2008 closed at 19.42 inches — a deficit of 15.61 inches — according to the Taylor Texas Weather Network. Williamson County farmers and cattlemen are feeling the conditions as crops and grazing pasture dry up, raising prices for seed and feed and causing costly losses. Many ranchers have been forced to sell their cattle for which they are constantly buying expensive feed. “Oh, it’s bad,” Bob Whitney, Williamson County agricultural extension agent, said. “We were anticipating about 20,000 acres of wheat planted and about 1,000 acres surviving. The prices of grains are pretty high, and they have been high, and then you throw in the damage we’ve done to our pastures by overgrazing.” At Granger Lake, water has receded hundreds of yards, exposing the lake bed and drying out the mud enough to walk on. While the reservoir is shallow when it’s full, the current maximum is less than five feet, according to Chad Hajda, conservation planner for the Little River-San Gabriel Soil and Water Conservation District. The Brazos River Authority has noted the drop at the lake, along with the low levels in other reservoirs, but year-end totals using the Palmer Drought Severity Index indicate the lack of rainfall is less severe in Williamson County than it could be. Travis County, directly south of Williamson, is listed with severe drought conditions. “In comparison, we’re actually doing pretty well,” Judy Pierce, spokesperson for the BRA, said. “We’re not in the red area. It really depends on the part of Texas that you’re in.” Year-end rain totals declaring Williamson County in an incipient dry spell under the PDSI mean little to the farmers who have not seen significant precipitation since May, Whitney said. “We need two weeks of slow rain,” Whitney said. “Not just storms that dump two inches and move on.” Significant rainfall will improve the subsoil moisture deeper under the ground, which affects overall moisture as well as the health of trees. Numerous tall, healthy trees, including American Elm, Cedar and Post Oaks, have perished as a result of stress-related diseases over the year. “If you talk to people who dig post holes, there’s just no moisture 10 or 12 feet under the ground,” Whitney said. If the drought conditions persist through 2009, farmers unable to plant corn will likely move to sorghum. If those crops fail, disaster will strike hard. “We have a long way to go (for this to be severe), but we can still get there,” Whitney said. “I came from Comanche County, and in 1991, we had 10 percent of our water left. We had four cities switching to well water, and we were limiting the water each household could get. It can get really severe.” Central Texas requires a slow-moving or stalled cold front during late winter or early spring to get the necessary rain to improve drought conditions, National Weather Service meteorologist Robert Vlaha said, along with sporadic, tropical weather systems that periodically drop significant rain from June to October. The outlook from the Climate Prediction Center shows bias toward continued dry conditions until March, then the possibility of improvement later in the spring. Outlooks are based on weather trends over the last ten years. “For Central Texas, the rain usually comes in the spring,” Vlaha said. “But how much is unknown.”
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