This photo of Lake Travis was taken in January from the parking lot of St. Luke’s on the Lake Episcopal Church, 5600 N. RR 620, Austin.[/caption]

Although the May rains came too late to save the Carlos’ N Charlie’s restaurant on Lake Travis, some west Travis County business owners are breathing a cautious sigh of relief following the recent change in weather.

On May 29, following about 10 days of rainstorms, the combined storage levels of lakes Travis and Buchanan was at 59 percent full, according to Hydromet, a live water information source on the website of the Lower Colorado River Authority.

The tallies showed a sharp increase from the lake levels the month before, with Lake Travis up almost 33 feet and Lake Buchanan up 4 feet.

“The future is bright,” said Pete Clark, owner of Just For Fun watercraft rentals located adjacent to the former Carlos’ N Charlie’s restaurant. “As soon as the weather stabilizes, it’s going to be off to the races.”

Clark also was co-owner of the eatery. He said the decision was tough for him and his partners to close the restaurant, but it was a necessary financial solution after 18 months of drought.

Because of the rains, six of the 12 Lake Travis boat ramp areas maintained by the LCRA opened by May 29.

“The boat ramps are opening up, and that will create a buzz for the community that the lake levels are coming back,” said Mark Vasquez, general manager of Sundancer Grill, 16410 Stewart Road, Austin.

Opened in 2014, the restaurant sits at the edge of Lake Travis on the grounds of the Sail and Ski Yacht Club. Like the former Carlos N’ Charlie’s, it offers boaters a boat slip while they dine waterside.

However, experts are divided as to whether the rainfall will continue and if lake businesses will benefit.

Lake levels rise

LCRA tallies showed that by the evening of May 29, Lake Travis was 72 percent full, a 5 percent increase from the same time during the prior month.

The climb represented a historically large uptick for Lake Travis, with April 2011 cited as the last time the body of water had reached that level, according to LCRA data.

At 43 percent full, Lake Buchanan’s water level was slightly above where it stood prior to the rainstorm.

Meteorologist: Tide is turning

LCRA Chief Meteorologist Bob Rose told Four Points Chamber of Commerce members at their May 21 meeting that the drought is on its way out.

In 2008 and 2009, the area was in a drought, but not as much of the state was covered by the dry conditions, Rose said. In 2010, Central Texas experienced some rain, and Lake Travis was filled until the drought returned in the fall, he said. By 2011 the entire state was in a drought and nearly all of Texas was in an exceptional drought, the most severe category of drought, he said.

“It was the hottest, driest summer on record,” Rose said. “Ever since then we’ve been dealing with drought in Texas. The intensity has gone down some, but we’re still dealing with this drought. For much of the state it is starting to end.”

He said that although drought conditions are not gone, things are looking better following recent rains. During the week prior to the meeting, rains were focused over the Lake Travis watershed, an area that had not seen rainfall despite previous storms in the region, he said.

“We’re kind of at a crossroads,” Rose said. “We are waiting to see how much more rain is going to fall over the Hill Country. It’s the magnitude of those rains. We are getting into the time of year when we can get some heavy rains in a short period of time.”

Lake Buchanan’s water level gain is predicted to be about the same as Lake Travis, but the recent rains had not centered on the sister lake, he said.

“If the weather stays more or less with normal rain, we’ll see a slow climb on the lake levels,” Rose said. “If it does continue [to be more] wet, we’ll see the lake level go up above 1,000 [feet].”

He said the rains previous to mid-May boosted water flowing in area creeks but had not produced a significant amount of runoff into the Lake Travis watershed until the May 20 rainstorm.

“This has been a terrible drought,” Rose said. “It has been a long-term drought. The last time Lake Travis was full was [in] 2010. Ever since then, we haven’t had the right kind of rains—it has either rained sporadically or we just haven’t gotten enough rain and [we have had] really hot temperatures to go along with that.”

Many cities in Texas just experienced one of their top 5 wettest May months, he said. The Hill Country is not quite there yet, he said.

In Central Texas areas east of I-35, rainfalls are higher than west of the corridor—with rain totals about 2 to 4 inches above normal on the western side and about 8 to 10 inches above normal on the eastern side, Rose said.

“This is more by chance than anything else, but over the winter and spring, storm systems have been coming up out of Mexico and moving over the area just east of I-35,” he said. “This pattern has just repeated itself over the winter period. [I-35 has] been kind of a barrier.”

Rose also said the areas east of I-35 are closer to the Gulf of Mexico and accumulate more rain in a weather flow pattern that has moisture.

“In the Hill Country, to get a lot of rain you need a system that tends to stall [or remain constant over one region],” he said.

“The average annual rainfall as you go west of I-35 gets less and less.”

This year has probably been the wettest so far since 2007, Rose said. Because of the anticipated effects of an El Nino weather pattern, more rain and cooler temperatures are expected for the summer and fall, he said.

“This El Nino finally started connecting with the atmosphere around March or April, and interestingly that’s when we started getting our rain across Texas and started improving,” Rose said.

Long-term weather models show Central Texas will remain in an El Nino weather pattern through the end of the year and into the winter, he said. The weather outlook shows fairly mild conditions and more rain for the area this year, he said.

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Lake management factors

“[Last year] was the warmest year worldwide in recorded history,” said Jo Karr Tedder, president of the Central Texas Water Coalition, citing a Swiss study.

The CTWC, a nonprofit organization, advocates to improve Highland Lakes water management, she said.

Tedder addressed the Lake Travis Chamber of Commerce on May 20.

“As temperatures rise there will be less water available,” she said. “The four areas of the world that are going to be hit the hardest are Southern Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and the American Southwest—that would be us.”

Tedder said she has seen the devastating economic impact the drought has made on area businesses. She said the improved conditions will not help Central Texas in the long run.

“We’ve had the rain, but it’s not doing what it used to do,” Tedder said. “I personally do not think [the Lower Colorado River] will ever flow the way it did in the ‘90s and the 2000s.”

She said water problems also stem from the way the resource is managed in Texas.

“In the past nine years, seven of those years have had the lowest inflows [into lakes Travis and Buchanan] in recorded history,” Tedder said. “We know 2011 is the big year. It [had] the lowest numbers ever. That was also the year the water left our lakes and went down to flood the rice fields—433,000 acre-feet, [or] 141.45 trillion gallons of water.”

Both Lakes Travis and Buchanan contribute to the drinking water of residents in western Travis County.

Tedder said the decision by the LCRA to provide water to downstream rice farmers from the Highland Lakes contributed to the drought conditions in recent years.

The rice farmers are one of the strongest lobbies in the state, Tedder said. This year, the CTWC pushed for legislation to provide a review or oversight of the LCRA governing body, something that had not been done in the 80 years the agency has been in existence, she said. Other legislation pursued by CTWC did not make it out of committee but would have forced further curtailment of the water sent to downstream rice farmers, she said. The coalition plans to back this legislation during the 2017 session, she said.

“People look at lakes as a bucket knowing it will rain to fill up that bucket,” Tedder said. “That does not happen anymore.”

Water from the Highland Lakes was cut off by the LCRA to most interruptible water customers, or downstream rice farmers, from 2012 to 2014. In March the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality approved emergency drought relief—thereby extending the order to cut off the rice farmers’ water flow from the Highland Lakes. The order ends June 18.