Old Ferry Road

The Texas Drought Continues

A dry boat dock at Camp Pedernales in Spicewood, Texas

These images were taken at Camp Pedernales on Old Ferry Road in Spicewood, Texas in February of 2013 and January of 2014.

We decided to try out Google’s beta tour builder, which permitted images to be loaded next to an interactive map of the area. The map has historical imagery – photos from years before the drought. Totally worth the time to wait for the player to load:

Take a tour with Google Earth.

These stark images show what the on-going drought in Texas has done to this once-vibrant river, a popular place for boaters to launch.

Texas Drought Map August 12th 2014

The most recent map of Texas from the US Drought Monitor shows the current drought intensity by Texas county:

So, let’s look at the data in that chart a little more closely:

82.74% of the state is considered to be “Abnormally Dry”, which is terrible. Fortunately, it is an improvement over three months ago when 91.18% of the state had that rating. The best news in the chart is the drop in area that is in “Exceptional Drought”. That area dropped from 20.73% of the state three months ago to just 2.62% as of August 12th, 2014. It is also an improvement over 1 year ago when 3.84% of the state was experiencing “Exceptional Drought”.