May's showers repelled drought, not mosquitoes in Houston
Published 9:32 pm, Sunday, June 8, 2014
Cooler-than-normal temperatures and drenching rains combined last month to keep the Houston area from slipping into another drought.
But that good news is tempered by a report from Harris County Mosquito Control that the same rainfall is helping hatch a bumper crop of hungry blood-sucking mosquitoes, including the first one to test positive this year for the West Nile virus. It was found in the 77044 ZIP code near Lake Houston and has triggered a round of spraying there to eradicate any potential spread of the disease, said Harris County mosquito control spokeswoman Sandy Kachur.
She said that most of the new crop of mosquitoes are merely the "nuisance" variety that don't pose any health threat, but she advised residents to take precautions and douse themselves with sufficient repellent.
Female mosquitoes can produce up to 1,000 eggs, which are able to lie dormant for up to 15 years, until rains supply pools of stagnant water needed for hatching, officials say.
According to the National Weather Service, the skies opened and dumped 11.7 inches on Houston in May, nearly two times what the area normally receives. It was enough to boost the city's rainfall total to 0.68 inches above normal for the entire year by the end of the month, National Weather Service meteorologist Paul Lewis said.
But during the first week of June, the rain clouds disappeared and rainfall totals now stand about a half inch below normal.
However, forecasters are predicting a 50 percent chance of rain Monday night.
At the same time, the region is experiencing eight months of cooler-than-normal temperatures with the mercury never climbing to the 90 degree mark, except one May day at a College Station measuring station. In a typcial year, the area would have seen 10 days of sizzling hot temperature by now, records show.
Instead, the average high temperature registered in the low 80s - about 2.5 degrees below normal, records show.
"Because of the Houston region's cool temperatures and rain, our lakes are filled to nearly 100 percent," Lewis said. "But the ground is still rated as 'abnormally dry,' which means an area could easily move toward another drought. My yard still feels hard when I walk on it."
While Houston is not considered to be in a drought, other areas, including Galveston, Brazoria and Chambers counties, still are. These coastal areas continue to suffer from "moderate-drought" conditions, and include the only two cities in the region that experienced below-average rainfall during May - Galveston and Palacios.
Meanwhile, forecasters believe an El Niño weather pattern, triggered by the warming of surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, is on the verge of developing and could be the answer to keeping the whole Houston region from falling into a new drought cycle.
And that's good news for Houston residents who want to avoid another Great Drought of 2011 that killed millions of trees, saw lakes drain like bathtubs and spurred the worst wildfire in east Texas history that scorched some 20,000 acres and destroyed 71 homes in a tri-county region.
National Weather Service records show that particular drought cycle started in 2009, the first of several years when the area began recording annual rainfall deficits that peaked in 2011. The Houston region received half its normal average of 50 inches of rain that year.
"You have to take a long-term perspective on droughts," said Lewis, a climate expert. "You can't really predict if an area's coming into or out of one without probably a year of weather observations."
The drought still remains a serious threat in portions of the Texas panhandle, south Texas and along the north Texas border with Oklahoma. But some of these areas were catching some rain, such as Wichita Falls that was so dry this year, it made the list of communities that might run out of water.
But over the weekend, the drought-stricken city finally got a heavy dose of rain. About 1.24 inches was dumped on the area, from the same weather pattern that also pummeled West Texas with baseball-sized hail.
The end of February marked the driest 41-month period for Wichita Falls since record-keeping began in 1897. The city has plans to start a wastewater re-use program, which will save a third of residents' current daily usage, city officials said. Fifty percent of the water would come from toilets, dish and clothes washers, and sinks, showers and baths.
This report contains material from the Associated Press.