Wet week followed by weekend rain pushes up elevation
By Larry Briscoe
Correspondent
Photo by Larry Briscoe Area creeks, including this one on FM 36 north of State Highway 276, were out of their banks Thursday as ice and snow melted to raise the elevation at Lake Tawakoni by more than three feet.
A week of freezing rain, sleet and snow, followed by another inch and a half of rain over the weekend pushed the elevation at Lake Tawakoni up four and a quarter feet by Wednesday morning.
The reading at that time was 429.66, up 4.26 feet from the 425.40 elevation on Jan. 1.
The lake is still down 7.84 feet from its full pool elevation at 437.5.
Lake Tawakoni had gained 108,000 acre feet from its low on Jan. 1 of 503,100 acre feet to the high on Tuesday of 613,700 acre feet.
The lake was 68.8 percent full by Wednesday.
At least one water company had already eased its water restrictions because of drought.
Combined Consumers Special Utility District announced plans Friday to go from Stage 3 to Stage 2 in its Drought Contingency and Water Emergency Response Plan.
The water company that serves a large portion of the Quinlan-Tawakoni area had already backed down from Stage 4 to Stage 3.
