Was out on Lime Creek road and in Volente area this morning - whoo boy, lake is low. I already knew that, I like to look at Water Data for Texas and LCRA Hydromet website, but seeing it in person always hammers it home.

Since the lake was created there were only 3 prior period where the lake was this low. 2 of the lowest points, since it was dammed, have happened in last 13 years. Weather coincidence, development, and bit of both - but it always feels like there is a much worse worst case scenario that could play out at any time.

Historically, when it recovers from low drought points it does it very,very quickly via floods. Hope this El Nino brings us a great non destructive but heavy rain event by November. Dropping about a foot a week on Lake Travis.

Electric bills have been high but at least the electricity did not cut off.
Do think we are past the strings of 105* days though probably hit 100* for weeks.
Am doing selective watering.
Ready for football weather.

ERCOT was super tight on supply/demand around 8 PM last night - it was close, in fact perhaps they shut down some people. I haven't looked, but the supply line was almost right on top of the demand line at 8.

Any reason why?

It's hot outside, but it's been hotter this summer, for extended periods of time. Is some of our output down?

AgGrad99 said:

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Any reason why?

It's hot outside, but it's been hotter this summer, for extended periods of time. Is some of our output down?

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"Current forecasts are showing a potential to enter emergency operations this evening because of a high level of unexpected thermal generation outages and forecasted low wind generation. ERCOT will continue to closely monitor conditions throughout the day and will keep the public informed through our communications channels," ERCOT said.

The causes for concern are a high level of unexpected thermal generation outages at coal, gas and nuclear power plants and low wind generation. ERCOT says the combination is expected to lower the grid's operating reserves.

Energy experts say low winds in August are not a surprise.

"It has always been low wind in West Texas and low wind along Gulf Coast Texas for 20 plus years now. This is completely predictable," said Alison Silverstein, an independent energy consultant.

Thanks.

Frustrating.

If only we'd expand nuclear (small modular). Maybe we wouldn't be worried about wind when we need it the most.

We have recently gone through a fairly strong, but unfortunately short, El Nino cycle. El Nino, on average, brings rainier years and fills our lakes. Sadly, Lake Travis stands at 631 feet elevation, very low, and El Nino is ending over by June according to latest forecasts.

Local officials recently approved millions to recommission the floating barge that allows water intake to occur at a lower elevation in Lake Travis than than the fixed intake does. If levels drop below 618, a historically low level, then the barge will need to be used to supply water. The barge and floating intake was last in place during the big drought 10 years ago, then was decommissioned as the lake levels rose.

Due to the El Nino rainfall, so far anyway, being a dud during this El Nino event - we could see some really low Lake Travis levels later this years. We are still technically in an El Nino cycle so we have to hope that either we get some flooding events here in the next few months, typically rainy months and the last months predicted for this El Nino, or that we get better rains that a typical La Nina year provides. El Nino doesn't guarantee big rains, a fact proven recently, and La Nina doesn't guarantee low rainfall amounts either.

We'll see what happens.

El Nino brought plenty of rain, the bad thing for lake levels is most of it fell on or east of the Lake Travis area for some reason.
Bastrop/LaGrange area got anywhere from 10-19" of rain this year alone.
Out west on the Llano & San Saba rivers, rainfall was only 2-4" on average so far.

Apache said:

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El Nino brought plenty of rain, the bad thing for lake levels is most of it fell on or east of the Lake Travis area for some reason.
Bastrop/LaGrange area got anywhere from 10-19" of rain this year alone.
Out west on the Llano & San Saba rivers, rainfall was only 2-4" on average so far.

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Yes, very true - I was intending to focus only on rainfall in the watersheds that impact Lake Travis and therefore the drinking water for my area (Leander and Cedar Park). The floating intake barge is for Leander/Cedar Park water supply, I forgot to specify that.

Definitely more rain in California and the Southwest US as well. Just unfortunately has dodged the LCRA recharge zones most impacting Lake Travis.

As we have seen before though, it just takes ONE massive flood event to fill the lake.

The are projections for an active hurricane season

Seems like we will get an active Hurricane season: Researchers predict 'aggressive' 2024 hurricane forecast for Texas