Drought.gov county dashboard<\/a> reports 20,097 people \u2014 100% of DeWitt County’s population \u2014 affected by drought.<\/p>\nWhat’s more remarkable is how quickly that number changed. The affected population increased 424.9% in one week, while the percentage of the county population affected jumped 81 percentage points. That’s rapid drought intensification.<\/p>\n
It provides an important lesson about drought: How wet you were earlier in the year doesn’t necessarily tell us how quickly you can dry out now.<\/p>\n
Drought.gov ranks January through July 2026 as DeWitt County’s 38th wettest year-to-date in 132 years of records. But July itself ranked as the county’s 61st driest. That’s a dramatically different story from what happened farther west.<\/p>\n
July created a moisture bank account<\/p>\n
Think of soil moisture as money in a bank. Rain makes deposits. Heat, sunshine, plants and wind make withdrawals. July made some enormous deposits across portions of South-Central Texas.<\/p>\n
Kerr County experienced its third-wettest July in its historical record. Bandera and Uvalde counties recorded their fourth-wettest July, while Medina County had its sixth wettest.<\/p>\n
Those counties entered August with an unusually large moisture reserve. DeWitt and portions of the Coastal Plains didn’t have the same account balance. Then August heat started making withdrawals.<\/p>\n
Day after day of intense heat increased evaporation from the soil and water surfaces. Plants continued pulling moisture from the ground and releasing it into the atmosphere through transpiration.<\/p>\n
Together, that’s evapotranspiration. Warmer temperatures increase evapotranspiration and reduce soil moisture. When rainfall becomes inconsistent at the same time, the balance can change quickly.<\/p>\n
The divide shows up around San Antonio<\/p>\n
County data records reveal a striking gradient. Drought is affecting 100% of DeWitt County’s population. Wilson County is at 99.3%. Atascosa County is at 95.6%.<\/p>\n
Then move toward San Antonio and the numbers drop. Bexar County stands at roughly 32% of its population affected, Medina County around 17%, and Guadalupe County around 13%, according to the latest county data.<\/p>\n
Farther into portions of the July flood zone, the contrast becomes even sharper. County data currently shows no area in D1\u2013D4 drought in Kerr County on the latest U.S. Drought Monitor data valid as of August 25.<\/p>\n
Same summer. Same general region. Very different moisture histories.<\/p>\n
This is how flash drought becomes possible<\/p>\n
A traditional drought may develop gradually over months or even years. A flash drought is different. The landscape begins losing moisture incredibly fast. Persistent heat increases atmospheric demand for water. Rainfall fails to replace what’s being lost. Soil moisture drops. Vegetation becomes stressed.<\/p>\n
The deterioration can occur over weeks rather than seasons.<\/p>\n
That doesn’t mean every dry county in South Texas should automatically be labeled as experiencing a flash drought. It means the ingredients for rapid drought development or intensification deserve attention.<\/p>\n
The speed of the change in counties such as DeWitt is exactly why we’re watching. <\/p>\n
One thunderstorm won’t necessarily fix it<\/p>\n
This is where scattered summer thunderstorms can be deceptive. A ranch may receive an inch of rain while another property several miles away receives almost nothing. We’ve seen that pattern repeatedly. The rain gauge underneath the storm looks impressive. The regional moisture deficit may barely change.<\/p>\n
That’s why drought monitoring uses much more than rainfall totals. Soil moisture, temperature, evaporative demand, vegetation, streamflow and observations from people on the ground all contribute pieces of the picture. Drought specialists specifically identify precipitation, evaporative demand, soil moisture and water availability among the factors important to agricultural drought monitoring.<\/p>\n
The question isn’t simply: Did it rain?<\/p>\n
It’s: Did enough rain fall over a large enough area to replace the water the landscape is losing?<\/p>\n
Those are very different questions.<\/p>\n
San Antonio sits near the transition<\/p>\n
That makes Bexar County particularly interesting. We’re not sitting squarely in the wetter Hill Country regime. We’re also not seeing the degree of deterioration showing up farther southeast. We’re in between and in Bexar County itself, rainfall hasn’t been the same everywhere.<\/p>\n
That means the landscape south and east of San Antonio can behave differently from locations toward the Hill Country edge.<\/p>\n
It’s another reminder that a drought map \u2014 just like a rainfall map \u2014 shouldn’t be interpreted as though conditions suddenly change at a county line. The atmosphere doesn’t know where the county signs are.<\/p>\n
What happens next matters<\/p>\n
The next several weeks will tell us whether the Drought Divide becomes more pronounced or begins closing. Widespread, meaningful rainfall could replenish soil moisture and slow the deterioration. Continued heat combined with scattered, inconsistent rainfall would do the opposite. That’s why we’re watching more than the weekly drought map.<\/p>\n
We’re watching how quickly the landscape is losing water. July gave parts of South Texas an enormous moisture deposit. August began spending it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO – Drive across South Texas right now and you can cross more than county lines. You…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":["post-424315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424315","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=424315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}