October rain brings much needed aid to Houston's lingering drought conditions

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Between last week's cold front and remnants of Pacific tropical systems this week, southeast Texas has received some much needed rainfall over the past two weeks.

The greater Houston area has picked up between two to five inches of rain since Oct. 1, which has greatly helped to eat away at the rainfall deficit the region experienced over the extremely hot and dry summer.

And with southeast Texas finally entering more of a fall-like weather pattern, ABC13 Meteorologist Elyse Smith spoke to state climatologist and professor with Texas A&M University Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon to learn what it will take to finally see these lingering drought conditions alleviated. And as it turns out, there will likely be substantial improvements in the Drought Monitor over the next two weeks.

"Even if it doesn't rain, we might see improvements next week indicating that the impacts of the drought have been alleviated," Dr. Nielsen-Gammon said.

"Plants had a chance to tap into additional water, things have greened up and so forth, nothing is losing its leaves anymore." He adds that generally improvements only move by one category at a time, so that's why it might take more than one week to see the total improvement that has occurred in recent weeks.

In relation to this year's drought, one thing to remember was how quickly conditions deteriorated. Within a little over five weeks Houston went from abnormally dry conditions to an extreme to exceptional drought. This is considered a "flash drought." It was fueled by the record warm air temperatures and lack of measurable rainfall throughout much of July and August.

Even the very warm ocean temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico played a role by keeping overnight lows above normal too.

So when considering climate change and the chances that summers could gradually get warmer, Dr. Nielsen-Gammon says we could be in store for more droughts like these.

"This summer was exactly the kind of drought we expect to see more frequently with climate change. Not necessarily less rainfall overall, but when we do have a lack of rainfall, then higher temperatures make things dry out faster, and we end up with impacts developing faster and becoming more severe," he said.

For more on this story, follow Elyse Smith on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.