Texas Drought Is Exceptional Again After Record Spring Rain, Floods

Parts of Texas and Oklahoma have slipped into an extreme or exceptional drought just a few months after record rain triggered massive flooding.

According to the October 13 Drought Monitor analysis, roughly 47 percent of the Lone Star State was officially in drought. For the first time since May 5, exceptional drought, the worst drought category, was analyzed in a small part of Texas.

Extreme drought has also spread over the past few months into southern Oklahoma and parts of the Lower Mississippi Valley, including a large part of Louisiana, southern Arkansas and Mississippi.

While droughts, by their nature, are slowly-evolving, this current drought is more of a "flash drought" evolving quickly over the past two to three months due to persistent hot and dry weather.

Over the past several days, parched vegetation, record October heat, and strong winds have fanned wildfires in parts of the Plains, including Texas and Louisiana.

(MORE: Plains Wildfires Turn Destructive)

According to the Southern Regional Climate Center, the 90-day rainfall totals ending October 13 in two of Louisiana's nine climate divisions covering northwest and north-central Louisiana were the driest for any such period on record.

From September 1 through October 14, only 0.07 inches of rain fell in Shreveport, Louisiana, including a record dry September. Average rainfall during that time is 5.16 inches. 

Only 1.19 inches of rain has fallen since July 1 in Waco, Texas, including a completely rainless July and October, so far. 

Impacts to agriculture are already being felt.

Forty-one percent of pasture and rangeland in both Texas and Louisiana were rated in poor or very poor conditions due to the drought, according to the USDA. 

The October 13 drought monitor regional summary said the lack of rain kept farmers from planting small grains and prompted use of supplemental feed for livestock up to six weeks earlier than average. Damage to trees and shrubs were noted in field reports from Mississippi, according to the drought monitor summary.

Burn bans were implemented in 136 Texas counties, as well as much of central and southern Arkansas.

Despite the drought, many Texas reservoirs remain in relatively good shape, with statewide combined storage near the 25-year average for mid-October, thanks to the torrential late spring rain.

The 2015 Precip Flip-Flop-Flip

In May, a succession of heavy rain events sent rivers over their banks and reservoirs over capacity in Texas, Oklahoma and other adjacent states. May was the single wettest month on record in both Texas and Oklahoma.

Swollen tributaries and reservoirs sent the Red River into major flood, cresting at the highest level in over 70 years in Shreveport, Louisiana on June 9.

To add insult to injury, Tropical Storm Bill and its remnant spread another round of heavy rain through the already waterlogged region in mid-June.

By late June, you can understand if the southern Plains was praying for a drought again.

Interestingly, the National Weather Service office in San Antonio emphasized that the very wet spring led to an abundance of vegetation, which later became dry in the summer and fall and contributed to rapid wildfire growth in mid-October.

Incredibly, prior to the faucet going on full blast in May and June, parts of the southern Plains were in the heart of a multi-year drought which had kicked into high gear in 2011.

That four-plus year long drought had taken such a toll on water supplies that the city of Wichita Falls, Texas, declared a stage five drought catastrophe in late May, even after several rounds of soaking rain had arrived. 

As it turned out, the city's wettest month on record sent the Wichita River to its highest stage in almost eight years, flooding some neighborhoods.

This is nothing new in the Lone Star State.

Just this century, Texas has gone from drought to relief (and even flood) to drought again in 2007-2008 and again in 2010.

In the 15-year history of the Drought Monitor analysis, one could argue the state hasn't seen such an abrupt shift from drought to flood to drought compressed within a span of about five months like what has occurred in 2015.

The strongest El Niño in 18 years offers a glimmer of hope that yet another precipitation flop out of the current southern flash drought could occur this winter.

NOAA's latest winter outlook calls for a good chance of a wet December through February period in most of Texas, Louisiana, and parts of Mississippi and Oklahoma. 

Also, while October tropical cyclone tracks typically favor the eastern Gulf of Mexico and points east, it's not out of the question surges of deep moisture from the western Gulf of Mexico and the tropical eastern Pacific could surge into the drought area, wringing out significant rainfall in the process.

The next few months may bring yet another chapter into what's been a weird, lurching precipitation regime so far in 2015.

MORE ON WEATHER.COM: Plains Wildfires, October 2015 (PHOTOS)