The latest U.S. Drought Monitor was released Thursday morning.

There is little change over the Hill Country. Severe drought stretches over Gillespie, parts of Blanco and Burnet counties. The area of no drought east of Austin shrunk in the past week. It now only includes Caldwell, Bastrop and Lee counties.

So what does this mean for our summer?

For one, it means we need more rain. April has been drier than normal with only 0.22″ of rain falling at Camp Mabry in Austin. We need May and June to be near normal, especially over the Highland Lakes watershed, to keep the lake levels from falling further.

The summer lake outlook was one topic at the LCRA’s annual meteorologists day Wednesday.