AUSTIN – The Highland Lakes are full as Central Texas prepares for the Labor Day weekend, the last major holiday of the summer recreation season. That’s good news in terms of water supply and for people who use the lakes for recreation and for businesses near and along the lakes.

But one big storm could once again trigger flooding on the lakes. And LCRA officials caution that a big storm could be possible, given the forecast for an active tropical storm season and an overall wet weather pattern this fall.

For the first time since they were created, Lake Travis and its sister water-storage reservoir, Lake Buchanan, will have remained at or above their full elevations for much of August. That is a result of wet weather that has kept the Highland Lakes in some form of flood operations most of the summer. It also has resulted in higher flows in the Colorado River downstream of the lakes.

Lake Travis, the flood-control reservoir of the Highland Lakes, is currently above its full elevation of 681 feet above sea level and is storing waters in its flood pool, which is designed to hold floodwaters.

“If the Hill Country gets a lot more rain, Lake Travis is the only place to put the floodwaters in order to protect downstream residents and property,” said Bob Rose, LCRA meteorologist.

That is why this year LCRA is keeping an especially close eye on the Highland Lakes, as well as gulf and regional weather conditions.

“We are likely to see more named hurricanes this season, and the presence of strong easterly trade winds creates a higher than average probability that at least one of those storms will reach the Texas coast,” Rose said.

The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 through Nov. 30 and typically peaks in September.

Rose also pointed out that this year’s weather pattern is somewhat similar to that of 1998, during which Central Texas experienced heavy rains and floods in the fall as well as two tropical storms affecting the Texas coast.

When Lake Travis is in its flood pool, LCRA follows guidelines by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – developed in the 1940s and revised in 1979 – to release water from Travis in a manner that does not create or worsen flooding downstream.

To do otherwise would defeat the purpose of downstream flood protection that was intended when Lake Travis and Mansfield Dam were built.