By Richard Zowie —
As the Christmas shopping season began last week, Mother Nature decided to give Fredericksburg an early Christmas gift — more rain.
Paul Tybor, manager of the Hill Country Underground Water Conservation District, described the rainfall as “widespread” and said western Gillespie County received about two inches over the past seven days, and between three to four inches over the past month.
“This will certainly provide recharge to the aquifers in this part of the state,” Tybor said. “Monitor wells are rebounding; however, they are still well below all-time-high historic levels.”
The manager said the rain fell slowly enough to not cause heavy runoff that could have damaged water gaps.
“There was some runoff, which has helped fill stock tanks,” Tybor said. “This should also help the wildflower crop next spring. This looks like it will be a wet winter since we are still in El Niño conditions in the Pacific Ocean, which, when that occurs, this part of the state gets rain. Models show this El Niño to persist into next spring.”
Tybor added that, according to the Lower Colorado River Authority’s rainfall gauging stations, the heaviest amounts of rain were up north around Brownwood. There, three to five inches fell over the last five days.
At Lady Bird Johnson Municipal Park, manager Tamara Heimann said the park received 2.28 inches over the weekend with 1.43 inches falling on Saturday.
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