WACO, Texas — With heavy rain in the forecast, the question is -- will this weather event be a drought buster?
Cities across Central Texas have been under water restrictions for a long time now, but all the predicted rain doesn't mean the problem will be fixed.
The local rain benefits vegetation and makes everything more green, of course. It also means less residents are probably outdoor watering, which protects the already low water supply.
To actually ease the drought locally, the northern part of the watershed needs to see rain.
"The way that rainfall is occurring is in a way that we're just not getting the runoff into the reservoirs that we would like to see," said Jerry Cotter, chief of water resources for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers monitor flooding and water supply in reservoirs. Cotter said much of the western part of the state has been struggling when it comes to rain, which is driving the low water supply in reservoirs, including the ones Central Texans use.
"Waco has three Corps of Engineers reservoirs sitting upstream of the community," Cotter explained. "One is Whitney and Whitney is down fairly low right now. The next one is Aquila and it also is at a fairly low level, it's at 84 percent of conservation storage. You also have Lake Waco and Lake Waco is very low at 62 percent. So we hope to see this rainfall occur on those basins, but occur at a rate where it's it's safe and doesn't trigger this other flooding."
Cotter said they will capture all the rain and be able to store that for water supply in the future.
That's exactly what the City of Waco is needing to ease water restrictions being held on residents.
Lake Waco, the primary water source for the City of Waco, is 10 feet below what it needs to be. Jessica Emmett Sellers, a senior public information and communications specialists for the city, said the low levels at the lake is what's driving the drought restrictions that are in place for residents.
Residents in Waco have been in stage 2 of the city's drought contingency plan since July of 2022. Emmett Sellers said the rain we could receive this week most likely wouldn't get the city out of stage two, but it could help in the long run.
"Rain could help us kind of delay those stage three restrictions, but it's probably not going to be enough to get us back into you know any lesser restrictions," she explained. "We're looking at those restrictions hanging around for a while and possibly even getting a little bit stricter to make sure that everybody is able to enjoy the quality of water that they're used to."
Emmett Sellers told 6 News, ideally they would like Lake Waco to rise 10 more feet, but there really is no specific number that would take away the drought problem because conditions and elements are always changing.
"We kind of always have to worry about it and so at this point I would not anticipate we would lessen water restrictions," she added.
Just like the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the City of Waco, is needing the rain to fall on the northern part of the watershed to actually make an impact on the 10 feet too low, Lake Waco.
"If the rain falls south and east of here that just keeps flowing to somebody else," Emmet Sellers said. "That's a lot less helpful than if it's north and west of here."
"We're all rooting and hoping that you know it stays west and that we are able to capture some of this runoff in the reservoirs," Cotter added.