Austin received some much-needed rain this week. The Austin American-Statesman reports that at least four inches fell overnight, with some areas receiving considerably more. Flooding continues to be a concern this morning and some outlying school districts are closed today.

Bands of thunderstorms starting moving through downtown Austin yesterday morning and continued overnight. Yesterday afternoon one of the storms brought pea-sized hail to the downtown area.

Lady Bird Lake always turns muddy with silt and debris after a hard rain. But eventually everything floats downstream or sinks to the bottom.

Two weeks ago I was out at Lake Travis in the Spicewood area. Lake Travis is two lakes upstream from downtown Austin and provides Austin’s drinking supply. (Lake Austin is next downstream in the Highland Lakes system, and then Lady Bird Lake which runs through downtown.) Lake Travis looked more like “River Travis.” The shoreline was over a half-mile away from where it used to be. The Lower Colorado River Authority projects that Central Texas will continue to be in an extreme drought situation in 2012. We will need a lot more rain before Lake Travis starts to fill up again.