After a long dry period, Mason County received a smattering of welcome rain in the last two weeks.
Spring seems tardy and the wildflowers are not on track to match the beauty of 2024.
Based on data charted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Mason is currently considered in severe drought. In fact, on March 23, 2025, Governor Abbott renewed the Drought Disaster Proclamation, which covers Mason and adjacent counties. This is the 55th driest year-to-date in the last 131 years and February was the 12th driest on record for the same period. (Drought.gov) According to the American Meteorological Society, “drought is a period of abnormally dry weather sufficiently long enough to cause a serious hydrological imbalance. Unlike hurricanes and tornadoes, drought is generally a slow-moving phenomenon.” Drought conditions are visible in the landscape. In town, lawns may be green and flowers blooming, but out in the country grass is sparse and tanks are dry. Perhaps more pernicious is the invisible toll that low rainfall takes on our underground water sources, specifically aquifers.
Groundwater is a major source of water in Texas, providing about 55 percent of the water used in the state. The other main source is reservoirs, or surface water. The Texas Water Development Board, TWDB,
