City officials unveil new water-supply dashboard; warn Western reservoirs could hit emergency levels by late 2026

Corpus Christi Water on Monday unveiled a new public “water supply dashboard” designed to show daily lake and reservoir levels, the city’s mix of water sources and modeled projections of supply and demand.

The dashboard, presented by Drew Molly, chief operating officer for Corpus Christi Water, projects the city’s Western supply — Lake Corpus Christi and Choke Canyon combined — could fall to the Level 1 emergency threshold in October 2026 and to 10% of supply by November 2026 if dry conditions continue and only the currently-modeled new wells and pipeline operation assumptions are used.

“We have moved away from a La Niña weather pattern, and the Gulf is warmer than it typically has been,” Molly said during his briefing, summarizing recent discussions with the state climatologist and the National Weather Service. He added that inflows to Choke Canyon and Lake Corpus Christi have been “extremely low” and that 2024 inflows were among the driest on record.

Why it matters: The dashboard is meant to give residents and council members a single place to see how much water is available, where it is coming from (Mary Rhodes Pipeline, Nueces River/Western supplies, Lake Corpus Christi and planned groundwater wells) and how long those…