Thunderstorms brought some much-needed moisture and cooler conditions to the Central Texas corridor this weekend, with particularly heavy rainfall Sunday.
“Most of Bell County has seen 1.5 to 2 inches,” said Meteorologist Matt Stalley with the National Weather Service in Fort Worth.
“The highest in the county was near the Belton area, which got 4.66 inches since last Friday.” As of press time, 0.98 inches of rain fell in the Killeen area Sunday alone, according to the NWS.
“Chances are highest in the morning with a 50 to 60 percent chance.” The high temperature for today is forecast to be 90 degrees, according to the NWS.
Stalley said the weather may taper off as the week continues, with rain chances decreasing to 20 percent by Tuesday.
Unfortunately, the rain may not be enough to offset the substantial drought within the region that has prompted many local cities to enter stage 1 of water conservation plans.
Two of the major water sources for the surrounding communities, Belton Lake and Stillhouse Hollow Lake, have risen to 589.29 feet and 614.77 feet, respectively.
These elevations represent a slight increase in the lake levels but do not suggest the recent storm systems had a strong impact on the drought.
“Most of the area had a pretty substantial deficit of rainfall this year so we do still have a ways to go to make up for the lack of rainfall over the last few months.” He said temperatures are expected to stay in the low to mid-70s throughout the rest of the week with highs to the mid-90s.
“For the second half of the week, there will be a gradual warming trend with a high temperature around 94 by Thursday,” Stalley said.

No one made any hay this year.
“This started back in June of 2017,” Fleming said.
Our stock tanks are dry or just about dry and trying to water a cow with a water hose is pretty expensive.” Thinning the herd Without adequate hay and water to sustain a herd, many producers were forced to sell off cattle early.
There are lots of cattle coming to market right now because nobody has any grass to feed them,” Fleming said.
“What we’re seeing a lot is cattle coming off lighter and moving earlier than they normally would,” Marburger said.
You sell the calves first to try to save the cows,” Mingus said.
You’re going to start getting into some of the better cows when you start doing that.” Market status “For as much as the supply has increased, the market has stayed pretty stable this summer,” Marburger said.
He added that the demand for beef should keep the market strong even as producers sell off herds.
“Even with the drought, I still see our state cattle herd and the national cattle herd continuing on a growth pattern,” Marburger said.
“If we go to running the better cows, then we might get some out-of-state people coming in if they have grass,” Mingus said.

The entirety of New South Wales is rain-starved, with some parts receiving less than 20mm this year.
For many farms, it’s the driest 18 months since records began in 1900.
The Bureau of Meteorology’s latest outlook for the next three months predicts high chances of warmer and drier conditions over the affected regions.
Winter crops during the driest autumn since 1902 will largely fail, while many farmers in the northern half of the state didn’t bother sowing any crops and won’t draw an income until December next year.
More than half of Queensland is also grappling with the unrelenting drought, the landscape bone dry.
Source:News Corp Australia Families hardest hit by the drought are struggling to pay household bills like food and energy, and they need livestock feed to stop their farms going under.
He has lived on his farm at Goolhi, west of Gunnedah in NSW, for 60 years.
All dams on the property are either dry or contain just a few centimetres of brown water, which they had to fence off because sheep were getting stuck and dying in the muddy banks.
For weeks now they have been organising donations of much-needed stock fodder and care packages for those families in the dry zones.
“Quite often there are tears when we turn up,” Mr Cockerell says.

OTTUMWA — Southern Iowa got its first significant rains in quite some time earlier this week.
It hasn’t yet had an effect on the drought.
That doesn’t mean the picture is good, though.
Extreme drought remains in place for much of Davis County.
Southeastern Appanoose and the southwest tip of Van Buren counties are also in extreme drought.
Wapello County is split between severe drought in the south and moderate drought in the north.
There’s reason for concern.
Later drought can decrease the size and number of kernels on an ear of corn.
Soybeans are more resistant to drought, but dry weather can take a toll on those crops, too.
“Drought stressed soybean are often shorter with smaller leaves due to lack of water, nutrient availability and nutrient uptake,” according to the report.

Southeast Most areas south and east of northwestern Alabama reported at least an inch of rainfall, with totals exceeding two inches in a broken pattern from eastern Alabama through the Carolinas.
Deficient rainfall is a recent development where it remains (subnormal totals date back less than 60 days), but the past month brought rainfall deficits ranging from an inch to locally four inches in most of the D0 areas.
South Moderate rainfall was less common in this region than farther east, with 7-day rainfall exceeding an inch restricted to portions of southeastern Texas, west-central and southeastern Louisiana, southern and east-central Mississippi, eastern Tennessee, and small pockets in the western Oklahoma Panhandle and adjacent Texas.
As a result, dryness and drought improved across the northwestern Oklahoma and the northern Texas Panhandle, but persisted or intensified farther south and east.
D3 expanded to cover a large area from southwestern to northeastern Texas, and smaller regions of D3 now cover several patches in northwestern Louisiana, along the Red River Valley, and in northwestern Texas.
Severe to exceptional drought is limited to southern parts of this region, primarily in south-central through western Colorado and parts of central and eastern Kansas.
Looking Ahead For the next few days (through August 14, 2018), a broad area of moderate to heavy precipitation is forecast in central and southeastern Arizona, across southern and eastern New Mexico, and from northern and central Texas eastward to the Atlantic Coast.
Rainfall totals exceeding an inch should be widespread, with two or more inches expected in the eastern half of the Carolinas and from southern Arkansas westward through the northern tier of Texas (excluding the Panhandle), part of the Big Bend, and southeastern New Mexico.
But despite unremarkable minimum temperatures, daytime highs should average significantly below normal (anomalies -3 F or lower) where persistent rainfall is forecast, specifically in the swath from the upper Southeast and interior Lower Mississippi Valley westward through Oklahoma, central and northern Texas, New Mexico, and southern Arizona.
Highs will average 6°F to locally 10°F below normal across southern Oklahoma, central and northern Texas, and eastern New Mexico.

Syracuse, N.Y. — While some areas of the state saw flooding rains in the past week, 20 percent of New York still remains in a moderate drought.
Today’s weekly report of the U.S. Drought Monitor also says that another 20 percent of the state is abnormally dry, the category before moderate drought.
The two areas in moderate drought are the same as last week: a portion of Western New York, and a swath through Tug Hill and the Adirondacks.
The abnormally dry areas border the drought areas; most of Long Island is also abnormally dry.
The northern part of the state has been dry for three months, according to today’s report.
"For the past 90 days, 4 to locally 10 inches less than normal precipitation fell on northeastern New York and much of Vermont," the report said.
About an inch of rain is forecast across most of Upstate in the next week.
Rounds of thunderstorms over the past week dumped heavy rain in parts of the southern half of the state.
Albany had flash flooding on Friday as more than 2 inches of rain fell in a short period of time.

DESPITE RECENT RAINFALL, Dublin is still in the grips of its most intense flash drought since records began in 1850.
Scientists from Maynooth University’s Irish Climate Analysis Unit (Icarus) are warning that recent rains do not make up for months of shortfall and seasonal forecasts show that there is a real possibility of the drought persisting.
Dr Simon Noone, Dr Conor Murphy and Professor Peter Thorne explain in a blog post that there are numerous ways to measure a drought.
A normal SPEI reading is 0 while -2 represents extreme drought.
A reading of -2.7 was recorded for the period from May to July.
‘We are potentially far from done yet’ The researchers note that the two most extreme prior months occurred in the same year.
“Don’t be fooled by a week of recent rains.
The reservoir previously had enough water for about 150 days, something Irish Water described as “a healthy position”.
A hosepipe ban and other water restrictions remain in place throughout the country.
More information on how to conserve water can be found here.

Much of Australia’s southeast is struggling with drought.
But the drought conditions in the Australian state of New South Wales this year have been the driest and most widespread since 1965.
BBC News reports that New South Wales produces about twenty-five percent of Australia’s agricultural output.
But it’s not enough for many farmers.
The state government on Wednesday also lifted the number of kangaroos that farmers are allowed to shoot and reduced bureaucratic red tape facing land holders applying for permission to shoot.
But Ray Borda, president of the Kangaroo Industries Association of Australia, which represents commercial shooters who hunt kangaroos for meat and leather, raised animal welfare concerns about the regulation changes.
The government would have been better off subsidizing professional shooters to reduce kangaroo numbers more humanely, he said.
"Despite this large natural variability, underlying longer-term trends are evident in some regions, and these are likely to be climate change related."
The department says the recent drop in rainfall across southern Australia is associated with a trend in the region toward high atmospheric pressure — a trend linked to shifting weather patterns.
"A recent attribution study shows extremely high pressures as seen across southeast Australia in August 2014 are more likely to occur in the future due to climate change," it says.

While many people in Denmark have been grateful for the warm summer, farmers have suffered due to the long dry spell.
With the country’s agricultural sector set see losses amounting to millions of kroner, representatives from agricultural associations from across the country will meet on Thursday to discuss the issue, the Danish Agriculture & Food Council said in a press statement.
Expected losses due the summer drought will be presented at the meeting.
Minister for Food and the Environment Jakob Ellemann-Jensen will also be present.
Ellemann-Jensen last month suggested he would consider political relief to farmers threatened by drought-related losses.
“A lot is at stake for individual farmers, which is why we are open to suggestions as to how we can help the agriculture sector in this unusual situation,” he added.
The Danish Agriculture & Food Council has already called for support in tackling the problem, which it has estimated to carry potential losses of 4.5 billion kroner to the sector.
Organic farmers have already received some assistance in the form of allowances for reducing roughage quotas without losing organic status in order to more easily feed livestock that normally eat grass.
That measure was approved in July by the government, Danish People’s Party and Social Democrats.
READ ALSO: Denmark considers political relief for drought-hit farmers

After weeks of scorching weather, local authorities have taken measures to fight water shortages across the country.
These areas have adopted at least one measure to reduce water use and 86 local orders limiting the use of water are currently in place.
As water levels become critical in many regions, in places such as the Loiret for example, farmers have been instructed to cut back their use of water for agricultural use.
The Gard has banned people from filling up their swimming pool and washing their cars and fountains have been switched off.
The full list of affected departments can be found on a government website managed by the ministry of environment and agriculture called Propluvia (see map below).
Every month a water report is published by regional environmental departments which the local authorities can then use to cross-reference with the alert levels to decide what action needs to be taken.
Drought orders are put in place for a limited period of time and in a limited area.
To ensure these restrictions are enforced, each local authority has police officers called "police de l’eau" who are reponsible for making sure drought orders are observed.
If these orders aren’t followed, police officers can dish out penalties including a fine of €1,500 which can go as high as €3,000 for repeat offences.
Water restriction measures were taken weeks earlier in June, and lasted until the autumn.