Texas Water Development Board

06/10/2025 | Press release | Archived content

Water + Weather for May 2025

Transcript

Dr. Mark Wentzel - Hydrologist, Texas Water Development Board

Hi everyone, and welcome to the Texas Water Development Board's latest Water and Weather report. I'm Dr. Mark Wentzel, a hydrologist in the Surface Water Division here at the agency. And today, we'll be taking a look at conditions for our state at the end of May.

Let's take a look at some of the big water and weather headlines. Statewide, May was warmer and wetter than normal. Near the end of May, 39 percent of the state was in drought, down 14 percentage points since late April. At the end of the month, storage in our water supply reservoirs was nearly 78 percent of capacity, about 6.5 percentage points below normal for this time of year. About half the state, from the Brazos River Basin and north, has recovered from drought. In the next few months, drought conditions are expected to be little changed.

Let's take a closer look at temperature and precipitation. On these maps, we're looking at both parameters relative to what is considered normal for May. From a water supply perspective, reds, oranges, and yellows mean trouble on both maps. They show areas with above-average temperature on the left and below-average precipitation on the right. Statewide, May was slightly warmer and wetter than normal, but most of the southern half of the state was warmer than normal, and most of West Texas was drier than normal.

Drought contracted nearly 14 percentage points during the month of May, primarily in North Texas and the Panhandle, but it hung on stubbornly in the rest of the state. Near the end of the month, 39 percent of the state remained in drought. The drought area is not distributed evenly within the state. In the Brazos River Basin and north, less than 2 percent of the area was in drought. Meanwhile, about 75 percent of the area south of the Brazos River Basin was in moderate or worse drought.

At the end of May, statewide water supply storage was nearly 78 percent of capacity, but supplies weren't divided evenly across the state. On average, water supply reservoirs in the Brazos River Basin and north, the area shown in blue on this map, were more than 95 percent full. Meanwhile, reservoirs in the rest of the state, shown in tan, were at only a third of their capacity.

Any chance for drought relief south of the Brazos basin in the next few months? Unfortunately, that's not likely. Through the end of August, the National Weather Service is expecting the last bits of drought to be eliminated from the Texas Panhandle, and they aren't expecting any new drought development in our state. But they also anticipate no contraction of drought or easing of conditions in West, Central, or South Texas. That concludes our report. Until next time, I hope you all stay healthy and safe.

Texas Water Development Board published this content on June 10, 2025, and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed via Public Technologies (PUBT), unedited and unaltered, on June 16, 2025 at 16:27 UTC. If you believe the information included in the content is inaccurate or outdated and requires editing or removal, please contact us at support@pubt.io