The walkway leading to a dock at Boat Ramp No. 1 at Canyon Lake has been made steep by the lake's low water level. Boat Ramp No. 1 is one of only two county boat ramps that remain open.
A near-record drought continues to spread through a desperately parched Central Texas.
As of Friday, Comal and almost a dozen surrounding counties were suffering through an “extraordinary” drought, the most severe category recorded by the U.S. Drought Monitor.
“That’s about as bad as it gets when it comes to a drought,” said Bryan Black, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Agriculture.
Locally, New Braunfels has received 16.52 inches of rain in 2008, around 20 inches below the yearly average. Should no significant rain come before the end of the year — and almost none is predicted — it would be the fifth- lowest amount of precipitation seen in the city since 1893, according to the local National Weather Service office.
“It’s worse than I can remember in my lifetime,” Comal County Judge Danny Scheel said.
According to Texas Agrilife, the current drought already has accounted for a total of $1.4 billion in agricultural losses across Texas. That includes $1.1 billion in lost crop revenue and another $290 million in lost livestock.
And at least in New Braunfels, there appears to be no reprieve for possibly the next few months.
While there’s a slight chance of rain this week, the Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center is forecasting below-normal rainfall through February.
“Long range, it’s looking like the dryness will continue at least through the winter,” NWS meteorologist Bob Fogarty said.
The water line at Canyon Lake is at record lows, topping out at 898 mean feet above sea level on Friday, more than a full 10 feet below the average lake level of 909 feet msl.
But unlike during the drought of record in the 1950s, when Comal Springs stopped flowing altogether, spring flows remained strong Friday at around 286 cubic feet per second.
The Edwards Aquifer also is just slightly below normal levels, despite the drought.
EAA Spokesman Roland Ruiz said the timing of the drought was softening the impact on the aquifer.
“We’re in a period of the year where there’s not a high demand for water,” he said. “If we were experiencing this drought in June or July, I think you would see a much more significant impact.”
The lack of rainfall now, though, could mean that any increased usage when the weather warms up would likely force EAA restrictions on aquifer pumping to go into effect months before they would normally.
“As soon as that demand for water goes up, we could see those trigger much earlier in the year,” he said.
The Keetch-Byram Drought Index — which gauges the likelihood for wildfires based on soil moisture and other factors — is at extreme fire danger levels in Comal County. As such, county commissioners already have banned certain fireworks over New Year’s, and Scheel on Wednesday could approve a ban on all fireworks.
The dry soil also is taking its toll on the local plant life, and parks officials say they’re doing their best to make sure trees get the water they need to survive, particularly those in Landa Park. A number of local residents have pitched in to help, adopting trees in the park and watering them since the beginning of summer.
“But even with the amount that we’re able to water, we’re still seeing the effects,” New Braunfels Parks Director Stacey Laird said.
And while it might not be on the scale of the severe local droughts seen in the 1950s, people throughout Comal County are hoping for a break from what are still historically arid conditions.
“I remember it being dry, but I don’t ever remember the conditions in the county being as critical as they are now,” Scheel said.
