Sam Marie Hermitte - Assistant Deputy Executive Administrator of Water Science & Conservation, Texas Water Development Board: "Nelun, one more question for you. How does coming out of a triple-dip La Niña affect things or does it at all?"
Nelun Fernando - Water Availability Program Manager, Texas Water Development Board: "Again, an excellent question. I would say it does affect because we have seen prolonged drought in parts of the state, especially in the Central Texas region, which typically gets rainfall in May and October. So, there are those two typical rainfall peaks during when our reservoirs have the inflows they need to get back up, to say, the full percentage of conservation storage. But since, I guess it was from 2021 through to the present, we haven't really had the good spring and fall rainfalls. To end this year, while we got some good rains in May, parts of Central Texas did not, some parts got, but then we had really hot temperatures, which almost negated any of the beneficial flows we got from those rains in May. In ‘22, we didn't get the spring rains. We got some deluges in August and September, which ended up filling up the conservation pools in some of the reservoirs, like in the Dallas Metroplex region. But then, in the wintertime, we had warm temperatures. So, that contributes to evaporation. And then, in the Lower Colorado River Basin especially, we've had record low inflows. And with multiple years of record low, combined with extremely hot temperatures leading to more evaporation from the water bodies, we have accumulated this deficit in storage. So those, the triple-dip La Niña, very likely, was a key factor in that deficit we saw with conservation storage. And if we have an extreme El Niño following those three years of La Niña, maybe we'll just see some relief. But whether we can really make up for that deficit is to be seen. There had been one other event in the near historical periods-I’m thinking from the 1950s to the present-in the 1970s, I think it was ‘71 to ’73 where we had-’73 to ’76-where we had a triple-dip La Niña. But as far as I recall, that was not a period of extreme drought in the state."
Sam Marie Hermitte - Assistant Deputy Executive Administrator of Water Science & Conservation, Texas Water Development Board: "So, this three years in a row of La Niña-or triple-dip-has resulted in a significant deficit, water supply deficit, in our reservoirs across the state. And then, combined with the significant heat, especially of this past summer, a lot of the state is really very dry and hurting in terms of our reservoir levels. So, all the more important that we conserve our water. Yes. And look forward and cross our fingers to hopefully better times in the months ahead."
Nelun Fernando - Water Availability Program Manager, Texas Water Development Board: "Yes. Conservation is key. Yes. Even in a good year. In a year that it rains, we can do with less water."