If you’ve moved to the Coastal Bend in the last two years, chances are your neighborhood has been under water restrictions the entire time. Friday October 25 marks 864 days of water restrictions for Corpus Christi Water customers.
Lake Corpus Christi is the second biggest player in our water supply. When it’s full, this lake has a capacity of over 250,000 acre-feet. These days, this is what Lake Corpus Christi looks like at less than 40 percent full. In October 2023, Lake Corpus Christi was half full; in 12 months, the lake has dropped to roughly 32 percent. You don’t have to be a meteorologist to know what’s changed in the last year.
“The whole of South- and south-central Texas have missed out on the rain events.” Greg Waller, Service Coordination Hydrologist with the National Weather Service says the reason behind our drought is simple, but the science is not.
He says, “the heavy rain has to fall in the upper Nueces up near Asherton, all the way over to near the border. The border itself is the Rio Grande.” That just hasn’t happened and weekly updates to the drought monitor have shown worsening conditions throughout the Nueces River watershed.