MEDINA LAKE, Texas - So far this year it has seemed we might have turned a corner in our devastating drought. But have we really? The landscape looks better, but that's not the whole story.
The rain the last several months has been great. In fact, it's even greened things up around the area.
But there are signs that we are no where near getting out of the drought. The northern end of Medina Lake is in worse shape. Boat docks are still dry, and you can walk across the lake bottom. This end of the lake dries up first and fills up last. The southern end of the lake looks better.
Carol Smith with the Medina Lake Preservation Society says the rains have helped some.
"We're about 65 percent capacity," explained Smith. "We have seen some elevation change in the lake, but San Antonio does use this lake for a municipal water source now."
That draw from San Antonio on top of the drought has stressed the lake to the point that it was at one point 80% dry. Even with the rains, it's still almost 50 feet below normal.
These are factors that many people don't see. But they have seen the recent rains and some think we're coming out of the drought.
The state drought index looks encouraging as well with much of our area just "abnormally dry" instead of exceptional, the worst category where we were just a few months ago.
But many reservoirs in central and west Texas are still hurting. State Ag Commissioner Todd Staples says a drought map doesn't show that.
"We are just beginning the season that could really cause us some consequences economically with continued loss of jobs if we don't have some sustained rains," said Staples.
San Antonio already falling back into stage one water restrictions in the middle of the spring rain season is also not a good sign.
While the 90-day forecast seems to be a bit more optimistic about rainfall chances, the state climatologist says there's a 50 percent chance we could see our third La Nina pattern in a row this coming summer, and that typically means less rainfall.
