Edwards

Barton Creek and Barton Springs, Austin.

No flow recorded at Loop 360.

USGS readings

LocationFlow (cfs)Observed
Barton Creek at Oak Hill0.86Sep 15, 4:15 PM CDT
Barton Creek at Lost Creek0.34Sep 15, 5:15 PM CDT
Barton Creek at Loop 3600.00Sep 15, 5:15 PM CDT
Barton Springs20.00Sep 15, 5:00 PM CDT

cfs = cubic feet per second. Readings are provisional; anything older than three hours is marked stale.

Water needed for flow at Loop 360

At 20.0 cfs from Barton Springs, the model implies about 520 acre-feet (64.1 hectare-metres) of effective draining storage.

Additional storage by spring-flow target
Barton Springs targetExtra acre-feetExtra hectare-metresStorage gap
60 cfs1,039128.2
80 cfs1,559192.3
99 cfs2,053253.2

# ≈ 100 acre-feet of extra storage.

These are exploratory storage scenarios, not measured total aquifer volume or a guarantee of creek flow.

Calculation and assumptions

Linear reservoir: storage = 13.1 days × Barton Springs discharge × 1.98347 acre-feet per cfs-day. Extra storage uses the increase from current discharge to each target, with a minimum of zero.

The 13.1-day drainage constant comes from a short May 27 to June 1 recession fit. The 60, 80, and 99 cfs targets come from the earlier analysis of paired daily readings from January 2010 through April 2026. That analysis defined a flow day as daily mean Loop 360 flow of at least 20 cfs; 99 cfs was approximately the median Barton Springs flow on those days. It does not establish a required threshold.

One hectare-metre is 10,000 cubic metres. A hectare by itself measures area. This estimates a change in effective draining storage, not all water underground. Holding a higher spring flow requires ongoing recharge, and rainfall does not all become recharge. The calculation uses the latest spring reading, not the earlier script's seven-day average.

Ten-day rain forecast

Rain expected at Loop 360
Inches9/159/169/179/189/199/209/219/229/239/24
Rain0.00″0.00″0.00″0.00″0.00″0.00″0.00″0.00″0.00″0.01″

Full-day forecast totals, including showers. Dates use Austin time. N/A means unavailable. Rain data: Open-Meteo.

Checked Sep 15, 5:24 PM CDT. Updates on page load; cached for five minutes.

James Wissemann