CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — City leaders are closely watching the forecast for potential flooding in the city, but also the impact the tropical weather could have on our lake levels.
The big question, could it be enough to make it into the watershed and help hold off Stage 3 water restrictions?
City Manager Peter Zanoni said they've been in talks with the National Weather Service throughout the day Monday and forecast models look promising.
Rain is on the way for Texas as a tropical system develops in the Gulf of Mexico.
"The National Weather Service is pretty certain the city will see six to eight inches of rain, the watershed, thank God, will see two to four inches of rain, through this event," Zanoni said.
Currently, our combined lake levels are at 25.1 percent, which is just five percent away from the trigger that would send us into Stage 3 water restrictions.
City leaders have said that we need a significant rain event, a good 15-20 inches to fall in the right areas to make an impact on our lake levels.
"What we've seen up to this point, quick showers that have come and gone and haven't hit the recharge areas," Zanoni said. "We think this will help us in our call for Stage 3, also promising for next week are chances of rain as well."
It's the long sustained periods of rain we need and something we haven't seen in quite some time.
"This could be extraordinary," Chief Operating Officer for CCW Drew Molly said. "The last time we had 8-10 inches of rain was August of 2022 was 'Invest L' that was enough we almost got out of all drought restrictions."
What will actually make it into the lakes this time as runoff is not easy to tell. The reason: we are seeing drought in the watershed, meaning the soil will absorb some of the water we get.
Still Molly said it will provide us a good opportunity to move the needle and buy us more time from Stage 3 restrictions.
"It's amazing how things can change pretty quickly," he said. "Everyone knows this is not the time of year we get the most rain, but everything is a different story once we start talking about tropical systems."
We've been in Stage 2 water restrictions since March of this year.
City leaders expect this rain event to get us to or a little over 30 percent combined lake levels. However, we would need to get to 40 percent to eliminate Stage 2 restrictions all together.