Lake levels rise behind wet conditions

 By Larry Briscoe

Correspondent

Lake Tawakoni reached a 72.9 percent full elevation level on March 18 after weeks of winter precipitation and rain. Forecasts for more rain in the coming week had hopes running high that a wet spring would finish filling out the drought’s deficits.

The elevation by March 18 had reached 430.56 feet, down 6.94 feet from its full pool reading of 437.5 when water flows over the spillway. That last occurred in 2010 but the reservoir had a close encounter with its capacity in 2012.

The lake had conservation storage of 635,361 acre feet. The capacity storage of Lake Tawakoni is 871,685 feet. The lake covered 31,052 acres. The surface area of the lake at full capacity is 36,700 acres.

At the beginning of the year, drought conditions appeared on the verge of taking Lake Tawakoni’s elevation down to its all-time low. In fact, on Jan. 1, the reading was within inches at 425.44 of its all-time record low 424.96 recording, set Dec. 24, 2006.

With the lake down 12 feet low on Jan. 1, the lake was down to 56.3 percent full. The conservation capacity of 871,685 acre feet was down to 490,646 acre feet conservation storage and a surface area of 25,851 acres.

The city of Dallas water system of reservoirs was at 75.7 percent full. The system includes six lakes of which Lake Tawakoni is the largest. A seventh reservoir, Lake Palestine in Henderson County, is to date not connected to the Dallas water supply system.

The other five include the following—

Lake Fork in Rains and Wood Counties was down 3.41 feet, 85.9 percent full with 551,089 acre feet of conservation storage of 605,061 acre feet capacity and a surface area of 23,944 acres.

Lake Ray Hubbard in Rockwall and Dallas Counties was down 6.18 feet, 73.2 percent full with 330,755 acre feet of conservation storage of 452,040 acre feet capacity and a surface area of 17,922 acres.

Grapevine Lake in Tarrant and Denton Counties was down 9.81 feet, 65 percent full with 107,073 acre feet of conservation storage of 164,703 acre feet capacity and a surface area of 5,161 acres.

Lewisville Lake in Denton County was down 5.12 feet, 77 percent full with 469,223 acre feet of conservation storage of 563,228 acre feet capacity and surface area of 23,453 acres.

Ray Roberts Lake in Denton and Cooke Counties was down 6.85 feet, 77.2 percent full with 608,558 acre feet of conservation storage of 788,167 acre feet of capacity and surface area of 23,996 acres.

The all-time high Lake Tawakoni elevation recording was taken May 1, 1966, at 442.50.

The lake had received 6.04 inches of rain by early last week, according to Sabine River Authority (SRA), and the annual rainfall over the Lake Tawakoni basin averages 39.5 inches. The maximum record was measured in 1946 of 63.7 inches. The record low rainfall was 17.6 inches in 1910.