{"id":306949,"date":"2026-05-24T12:54:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T12:54:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/306949\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T12:54:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T12:54:25","slug":"corpus-christi-postpones-water-emergency-as-super-el-nino-offers-an-end-to-drought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/306949\/","title":{"rendered":"Corpus Christi Postpones Water Emergency as \u2018Super El Ni\u00f1o\u2019 Offers an End to Drought"},"content":{"rendered":"

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas\u2014Recent rainfall in South Texas has pushed off the projected date of emergency water restrictions in Corpus Christi by three months, the city announced Tuesday, amid growing hope that a\u00a0powerful global climate phenomenon<\/a>\u00a0this year could wash away the region\u2019s historic drought.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lake Texana, the smallest of Corpus Christi\u2019s three reservoirs, rebounded from record lows last month when it received its first inflows in eight months. Worst-case projections in mid-April showed\u00a0the lake going dry<\/a>\u00a0by summer. Now it should last until early next year, at least.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are pleased to share the positive news,\u201d said Nicholas Winkelmann, chief operating officer of Corpus Christi Water, in\u00a0a Tuesday announcement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one small step in a regional water crisis that has developed over decades. But the short bridge that recent rains provided goes a long way to helping the region narrowly\u00a0avoid a disaster<\/a>, local water planners say. Expectations of a powerful \u201csuper El Ni\u00f1o\u201d event this year suggest that intensely wet weather could return to the Coastal Bend of Texas this fall, potentially putting water into the region\u2019s largest reservoirs, which have fallen to critical levels.\u00a0<\/p>\n

El Ni\u00f1o is a cyclical climate pattern driven by warm currents in the Pacific Ocean that shift jet steams and weather worldwide. Typically, El Ni\u00f1o has brought cooler and wetter weather to the Gulf Coast in late fall and winter. This year, record warm water in the Pacific Ocean\u00a0could produce the strongest<\/a>\u00a0El Ni\u00f1o pattern in a century.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Forecasts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u2019s Climate Prediction Center indicate \u201cincreased probabilities of a strong to very strong El Ni\u00f1o possible this fall.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, water planners in Corpus Christi worried their reservoirs could empty before El Ni\u00f1o appeared to save them. The recent boost to Lake Texana significantly lowers that likelihood, according to John Michael, an engineering firm executive who has spent 44 years working on water infrastructure in the region.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve just got to get through this year,\u201d said Michael, local vice president of Hanson Professional Services, an engineering firm with offices around the country. \u201cI\u2019m much more optimistic today than I was three months ago.\u201d\"\"<\/p>\n

The city of Corpus Christi initially projected a \u201cLevel 1 water emergency<\/a>\u201d in November. As drought deepened, the city said in March that the emergency could come\u00a0as soon as May<\/a>. Then in April, it said the\u00a0emergency would come<\/a>\u00a0in September.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If levels continue to rise in Lake Texana, 100 miles northeast of Corpus Christi and linked to the city by pipeline, it could meet the region\u2019s domestic and industrial water needs well into next year. By that time, planners hope El Ni\u00f1o will end five consecutive years of record-breaking heat and drought.<\/p>\n

Dry spells in Texas have been known to conclude with deluges, said Matt Lanza, a longtime Houston meteorologist and co-founder of the website Space City Weather.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had some false starts the last couple years,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are hopefully beginning to see the end of the drought in South Texas, but only time can tell.\u201d\"\"Water sits 30 or more feet below the base of a fishing pier at Lake Corpus Christi on April 28. Image: Dylan Baddour\/Inside Climate News<\/p>\n

Narrowly avoiding a water disaster doesn\u2019t mean that Corpus Christi has solved its water crisis. The region\u2019s largest source of water, the Choke Canyon Reservoir, has received three minor inflow events and zero major inflow in the last 15 years, according to Texas state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon. The next-largest reservoir, Lake Corpus Christi, hasn\u2019t logged inflows in five years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Both reservoirs combined are about 8 percent full, as the region\u2019s industrial complexes continue to draw large volumes of water daily. A return of moderate rainfall could keep Corpus Christi from emptying its main reservoirs, but it wouldn\u2019t likely fill them up anytime soon.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in drought, but we also have the water shortage,\u201d said Juan Pe\u00f1a, lead meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Corpus Christi. \u201cDrought is \u2026 short-term. The water shortage is more long-term.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, Corpus Christi remains at the mercy of rain. Almost all of the city\u2019s emergency water supply projects are hung up with complications and delays. Last week, a state administrative judge\u00a0sent the permits<\/a>\u00a0for Corpus Christi\u2019s largest emergency project, in Sinton, about 25 miles north, into a hearing process that could take years. The city had previously said it needed the project to start producing by November and was already laying pipeline.<\/p>\n

Corpus Christi also\u00a0drilled emergency wells<\/a>\u00a0along the Nueces River but found the water saltier than expected. Now the city is urgently advancing plans for one of the largest groundwater desalination plants in the country, which could treat up to 21 million gallons per day of brackish aquifer water for Corpus Christi\u2019s supply.<\/p>\n

-30-<\/p>\n

Previously published by Inside Climate News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas\u2014Recent rainfall in South Texas has pushed off the projected date of emergency water restrictions in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":["post-306949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}