Both Canyon and Medina Lake are historically low.
SAN ANTONIO — The rain is a welcome sight but we need a lot more to fill up our area lakes.
All of the public boat ramps at Canyon Lake are currently closed. You would think with all of the recent rains we’ve had that the lake levels would have gone up, but that’s not the case. They actually dropped!
“I’m a boat detailer. So, the lake levels being this low really hurts my business,” said Brian Dudik who is working at Canyon Lake at Spot On Detailing but because of the low levels he’s had to work elsewhere.
“I’ve had to move to Lake LBJ a lot at work out there because people don’t come here as much and the tourists aren’t renting boats as well,” Dudik said.
He said he can’t take much more of a drop.
“It is going well now, until the lake goes down another 10, 12 feet,” Dudik said.
Even with the recent rains Canyon Lake remains 46.1% full, which is actually lower than last week when it was 46.3% full, last month at 47%, and a year ago at 58.5%.
Medina Lake isn’t doing any better. That lake level actually fell to 2.0% full today, where just a week ago it was 2.1%, 2.2% a month ago, and 2.7% one year ago.
Mark Wentzel, a Texas Water Development Board hydrologist said, “From a statewide perspective we got a good amount of rain in April and statewide we were even above average.”
The rainfall was about average or slightly above average at both Canyon Lake and Medina Lake. So, how much rain will it take to bring these lake levels up?
“That first one or two inch rainfall after an extended dry period really just moistens the soil and gets it wet. There is really no run off from that. To kind of see some action we would need above two inches of rainfall to really get things going,” Wentzel said.
Until that rainfall arrives, it could take some time to fill up and lake levels could continue to drop even further.