Lake Conroe Reaches Full Pool Elevation for first time in 4 years

Lake Conroe is officially “full.” At approximately 11:30 A.M. on Tuesday, May 13th, the water elevation of Lake Conroe reached 201.00 feet above mean sea level. This is the first time that Lake Conroe has been at full pool elevation since April 25, 2010.

This is important to the Humble, Kingwood, Atascocita area, because as many of your know, Lake Conroe is one of the City of Houston’s sources of water in the event Lake Houston reaches critical levels, as they did in 2011. In October 2011 the San Jacinto River Authority was releasing 165 million gallons per day from Lake Conroe at the City of Houston’s request, the water flowed down the San Jacinto River into Lake Houston.

The following are a few key points regarding the Lake Conroe conditions:

Measuring a moving, sloshing lake surface is difficult, so the actual reading will continue to fluctuate until the winds die down. In addition, we are experiencing a sustained north wind, so some of the reading is due to wave action and water being pushed up against the dam.
There is still a lot of water draining from the watershed, so the lake will continue to rise for many hours, possibly even a few days.
As of 5:00 P.M. on Tuesday, May 13th, SJRA was not releasing any water from the gates. There is a small amount of spillage over the service outlet overflow, but it is minimal. Our philosophy with regard to releasing water is to hold off as long as possible and allow the lake to rise a little above 201 provided we stay within the parameters of our approved operating plan. We will continue to monitor the forecast and the rate of continued lake level rise to determine if and when we might need to let some water out. There is still additional rain in the forecast, which has to be taken into account.
The last time water was released through the main gates due to being over 201 was March 21, 2010.
During this rainfall event, rainfall totals across the Lake Conroe watershed ranged from 1.5 to 3.5 inches.
The total measured rainfall at the Lake Conroe dam year-to-date is 12.7 inches. The “normal” year-to-date rainfall for this time of year is approximately 18.5 inches. Even though we are considerably behind for the year in terms of rainfall totals, the lake level continues to hold strong.
As of 11:30AM on Wednesday May 14th SJRA has begun releasing 1060 Cubic feet per second (CFS) of water from Lake Conroe

Below is a graph showing the lake level over the last four years and an additional graph showing the lake level rise over the last week.