Outlook on summer lake levels
Lake Buchanan is about 61 percent full as of June 26, 2025. LCRA photo
With summer here and little precipitation in the Central Texas forecast, Highland Lakes reservoirs most likely will have to get by with what they’ve got until the fall, when the rain (hopefully) returns.
According to the Lower Colorado River Authority, the current combined storage level of lakes Buchanan and Travis is at 52 percent as of Thursday, June 26. LCRA firm water customers, which include many cities and communities across Burnet and Llano counties, are under Stage 2 drought restrictions until the major reservoirs have a combined storage of 55 percent, or 1.1 million acre-feet.
Stage 2 restrictions, found in the LCRA’s Drought Contingency Plan for Firm Water Customers, call for mandatory drought response measures from firm water customers to reduce water use by 20 percent. This includes once-a-week watering schedules for ornamental landscaping. These rules are passed down to residents and businesses by the river authority’s firm water customers, which in the Highland Lakes, are the cities of Marble Falls, Granite Shoals, Burnet, Cottonwood Shores, Horseshoe Bay, and Sunrise Beach Village and the Kingsland Water Supply Corp.
The current combined storage of 52 percent is derived from Lake Buchanan’s current level of 61 percent and Lake Travis’ current level of 45 percent. The combined storage is similar to that of the last two years around this time: 55 percent in July 2024 and 50.4 percent in July 2023.
Major Highland Lakes tributaries are still flowing but subdued. As of Thursday, the Llano River is flowing at around 61 cubic-feet-per-second to Lake Travis by way of Lake LBJ, and the Colorado River is flowing at 96 cfs. Both rivers have dropped steadily since spring rains dwindled in early June, when inflows were routinely in the hundreds or thousands of cubic-feet per second, according to the LCRA Hydromet.
National Weather Service forecasts do not show much rain on the horizon across the northern Lower Colorado River Basin, which includes Burnet, Llano, and Lampasas counties as well as Brown, Coleman, Concho, Kimble, Mason, McCulloch, Mills, and San Saba counties. Current forecasts call for temperatures in the 90s with no rain until a scant chance in some areas on July 1.
This year is the third straight that the LCRA has cut off Highland Lakes water to most downstream agricultural customers due to persistent drought conditions. Users within the authority’s Garwood Agricultural Division, which lies within portions of Colorado and Wharton counties, are still entitled to up to 18,100 acre-feet of water in 2025. This is due to a contractual obligation between the Garwood Irrigation Co. and the LCRA from 1998 when the river authority acquired the region’s water rights.