For months, local leaders said the region needed either steady rain or a hurricane to replenish the largely empty reservoirs. Last week\u2019s intense storms across Central and South Texas, which triggered flash flood emergencies<\/a>, evacuations and rescues, may deliver some of the hoped-for relief.<\/p>\n The biggest gains, so far, have been at Choke Canyon Reservoir, the city’s largest water resource. The lake climbed from 7.9% of capacity<\/a> on Monday to 19.8% by Saturday. The reservoir was last consistently full in the early 2000s and has been below 50% full since 2013.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s nothing to sneeze at,\u201d said Robert Mace, a water expert and executive director of the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University. He said reservoirs are still rising, signaling that more water is on the way.<\/p>\n Just a few months ago, the region\u2019s outlook was far more dire. In April, the major regional reservoirs reached historic lows \u2014 Choke Canyon dropped to 7.4% of capacity while<\/a> Lake Corpus Christi fell to 8.5%<\/a>. That same month, at least six small cities and towns in the Coastal Bend region issued disaster declarations<\/a> amid the water crisis. Corpus Christi, which supplies water to some of its neighbors, told its residents and businesses to cut their water use.<\/p>\n \u201cEven if [Choke Canyon] stopped going up today, it buys Corpus valuable time to pursue alternative supplies,\u201d Mace said.<\/p>\n Rainfall runoff from the Frio, Atascosa and Nueces River systems is expected to contribute vital inflows to both Choke Canyon Reservoir and Lake Corpus Christi. The capacity of Choke Canyon is three times that of Lake Corpus Christi.<\/p>\n The Frio River, which flows into Choke Canyon, rose from a depth of around one foot in recent weeks to nearly 30 feet<\/a> on July 22 in Tilden. At its peak, the river carried roughly 20,000 cubic feet of water per second.<\/p>\n Flows have remained steady, meaning more water is still moving toward the reservoir.<\/p>\n \u201cThis flood event has broad shoulders as it’s moving down the river towards these reservoirs,\u201d Mace said.<\/p>\n Greg Waller, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service\u2019s West Gulf River Forecast Center in Fort Worth, said forecasts show Choke Canyon Reservoir could rise a total of 12 feet, bringing it up to 192 feet. The lake is nearing 186 feet, \u201cwhich is good, but it’s nowhere near full,\u201d Waller said. \u201cThis would be good for water supply storage for Choke Canyon.\u201d<\/p>\n While inflows are already reaching Choke Canyon Reservoir, Lake Corpus Christi is expected to begin seeing inflows within the next week. However, forecasting those flows is more complicated.<\/p>\n Waller calls the Nueces River problematic for a hydrological forecaster because it crosses the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone. During dry periods, the ground can absorb water before it can reach the reservoir.<\/p>\n How much will the ground suck up? It is hard to predict. Waller said the last five rain events have shown \u201cvariable loss\u201d of water. Forecasters expect some water will recharge the aquifer this time as well, but it\u2019s too early to calculate how much.<\/p>\n Corpus Christi officials said in a news release that they are closely monitoring upstream river flows to Choke Canyon and Lake Corpus Christi.<\/p>\n “Our team is continuously tracking upstream gauge levels and coordination efforts across the watershed,” said Nick Winkelmann, chief operating officer of Corpus Christi Water. “We are fully prepared to manage incoming volumes to ensure dam safety, optimize municipal supply storage, and fulfill all regulatory requirements.”<\/p>\n The city plans to hold a meeting next week to discuss what the rising lakes mean for its water emergency.<\/p>\n The Nueces River in Cotulla crested at significant flood levels at 29 feet <\/a>on July 22 \u2014 up from 4 feet in the weeks prior. That water will continue to travel downstream in the coming days.<\/p>\n Waller said that once the water shows up at Tilden, forecasters will have a better idea how much water will make its way to Lake Corpus Christi, which currently sits at 32% capacity<\/a>. The water could arrive as early as July 27 with a steady rise the first week of August, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe’re running our modeling to try to share this information, so [the city] can make the best decisions,\u201d Waller said.<\/p>\n Whether the storms will end the Coastal Bend\u2019s drought remains uncertain.<\/p>\n \u201cTexas is a state of drought with occasional massive flooding, and so we’re seeing that,\u201d Mace said.<\/p>\n Still, he cautioned against declaring victory: \u201cWe’ll have to see what happens with how much water comes into these reservoirs as to whether or not they’re drought busters for Corpus Christi.\u201d<\/p>\n Colleen DeGuzman contributed to this report.<\/p>\n Disclosure: Texas State University has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in The Texas Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete\u00a0list of them here<\/a>.<\/p>\n This article<\/a> first appeared on The Texas Tribune<\/a>.![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1785108668_392_cropped-cropped-texas-tribune-favicon.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Corpus Christi skyline along the north end of downtown includes city hall and the new Harbor Bridge…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387315,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[37348,127108,155,157,156,106314,59282,9871,136514,83079,136513,28,3602],"class_list":["post-387314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-choke-canyon-reservoir","tag-coastal-bend-water-crisis","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news","tag-corpus-christi-water-restrictions","tag-corpus-christi-water-supply","tag-lake-corpus-christi","tag-nueces-river-flooding","tag-south-texas-drought","tag-texas-flood-runoff","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-tribune"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387314","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=387314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}