Less than two years ago, officials in the Democratic People’s Republic Of Austin predicted that Lake Travis would run dry by 2016.
At current rates of inflow, Lake Travis will be full within ten days
If you are a government official, the fastest way to make a fool of yourself is to heed the advice of your local climate expert – like Andrew Dessler or Katherine Hayhoe.
(I used to spend every summer weekend swimming at Lake Travis)
h/t David Burge
Same story in Oz in 2010. Long drought, much doomery, then a good drowning.
Actually 2011.
Politicians listened to climate alarmists. When large flood control dam filled to over 60% from below 15% capacity after years of drought they were reluctant to let water levels drop to fulfil its purpose – flood control.
January 2011 it filled so fast it was in danger of overtopping the Earth embankment wall so water had to be rapidly released making the flooding worse than it needed to be.
Meanwhile upstream the actual water supply dam always had adequate water reserves.
There never was any real water supply emergency that couldn’t be, and was, controlled with sensible water usage !
Love Bradford’s comment – a few weeks ago the lack of water would have been a disaster – now it is a blessing !
Wolfdene should have been built.
Having a dual purpose dam is always a rather stupid idea, particularly when the two purposes are total opposites
He must certainly have another plausible explanation for the term “running dry” 😉
On another note the daily update found here has a toasty 70 + degrees F in the deep Arctic and has displayed the heat wave for quite some time:
http://www.lawrencevilleweather.com/wx.php?forecast=pass&pass=intlcondmaps&hwvRegion=nam&hwvMap=temperature&hwvunits=english
Recency bias: the tendency to think that trends and patterns we observe in the recent past will continue in the future. It is a plague, infesting a great deal of punditry of all kinds.
HAHAHA! I love how God proves the “experts” wrong all the time.
I used go swimming at Lake Travis most weekends in June and July from 1976 to 1981. The lake was fairly full much of that period. Here’s a photo I took of a nearly full Lake Travis in June 1977. The Sometimes Islands were completely submerged and water was up to the treeline.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/oz4caster/3821051847/
Here’s a very low Lake Travis in November 2013, when the Sometimes Islands became a peninsula and started turning green.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/oz4caster/10810248934/
The lake level has risen dramatically in the last few days and can be tracked here: http://hydromet.lcra.org/full.aspx
Two weeks ago the lake level had risen to about 630 feet after dropping below 620 feet the last couple of years. The long term average lake level is around 670 feet. At last report it was up to 650.5 feet and still rising rapidly after more heavy rain soggy soil across the area today. Yesterday alone, the lake rose 9 feet. Today so far it’s up another 3 feet and likely to rise more tonight and tomorrow.
Central Texas has a long and natural history of intermittent droughts and floods.
It is interesting to turn on the ‘drought’ box with the above link. Some areas along the Llamo river are in D2 severe drought despite 3 to 6 inches of rain in last week or so. That drought data is supplied by the National Drought Mitigation Center. Clearly they are asleep at the wheel. This drought must be that peculiar wet and floody type of drought that is due only to mann made CO2. Reminds me of a song “It rained all night the day I left, the weather it was dry; The sun so hot I froze to death —Susanna, don’t you cry.”
The drought data is updated only once a week on Thursday and valid as of the previous Tuesday. I’m not sure how quickly LCRA picks up the updates.
Obviously you have not yet seen the homogenized rainfall for Austin.
Suffice it say–you should be worried, very worried.
/sarc
Raining milk in Texas,eh?
Interesting Fact sheet here:
http://www.lcra.org/water/water-supply/drought-update/Documents/Fact-Sheet-Drought-by-the-Numbers.pdf
Opens with: “The levels of lakes Travis and Buchanan fluctuate because the two water supply reservoirs were specifically designed to go up during floods and down during droughts.”
They are referring to the fact that Lake LBJ is a constant level lake. Lake LBJ is lowered every couple of years to allow for pier/dock installation and repair.
20 years ago I rode jet skis on Lake Travis about once per week in the summer. At that time it was at average level. Fun lake with clear water.
Here’s a not-so-hard-to-make prediction: The medial will use the empty Lake Travis picture for many years to come, drought or no drought. Here’s what we see about CA today:
http://ecowatch.com/2015/05/17/droughts-floods-heatwaves-climate-change/
Only problem is the “dried out reservoir” is a picture of Uvas Reservoir in the Santa Clara water system, taken over a year ago on Feb 1, 2014. Today Uvas is 67% full (of 10K acre feet capacity).
But of course the caption reads: A dried-out reservoir in California, which is already in the grip of ongoing severe drought. Undated, unqualified.
There isn’t even an attempt to be truthful, only mislead.