Friday
September 25, 2026
Today at a glance
- Weather 99° / 74°Hot, but normal for us. The evening walk is the good one.
- Air quality 61 · ModerateFine for most of us. If your lungs are touchy, take it a little easy.
- Lake Travis 90.1% fullThe lake is close to full — good for boats and for the summer water supply. Down a touch from last week.
- Allergies HighElm and ragweed and grasses are heavy today. Windows closed, meds early.
- Power grid NormalA busy afternoon: demand near 80,900 megawatts, with 106,800 on hand.
- Sunrise 7:21 a.m.The sun is up for 12 hours and 2 minutes today, and down by 7:23 p.m.
Good morning, Austin. Ninety-nine again, which by now is less a forecast than a habit, but the air is drier today and you will feel it first thing. Sun up at 7:21, down at 7:23, and the day is a hair over twelve hours now. Elm and ragweed and the grasses are all heavy, so open the windows at your own risk. The lake is close to full. Next week is the one to watch: the front is still on the maps, and Tuesday through Thursday could feel like a different month.
The Briefing
Water costs more in six days, and the drought map just went extreme
Austin Water's rate schedule for the budget year that starts Oct. 1 raises the residential volume charge at every tier. A household using between 6,001 and 11,000 gallons a month goes from $10.26 per 1,000 gallons to $11.24. Single-family wastewater above 2,000 gallons goes from $13.40 to $14.93.
The same week, the U.S. Drought Monitor put parts of Travis County in extreme drought for the first time since June 2. A stubborn high-pressure ridge has kept the rain off and the heat on.
The city also called off its plan for Lake Austin. The 10-foot drawdown set for Oct. 12 through Nov. 30 is dead, after lakefront businesses said the timing would cost jobs in wedding season and during University of Texas at Austin football and Formula 1. The Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) offered Dec. 1 through Jan. 15 instead, which ran into holiday events, and it has not lowered the lakes in winter since Winter Storm Uri, because the Highland Lakes dams hold power in reserve for the grid. The hydrilla stays. Permit refunds are going out.
What the city's biggest new water customers use is still not on paper anywhere. The Texas attorney general's office is investigating data centers in Travis and 17 other counties that never answered the Texas Water Development Board's survey asking how much water they draw.
What's next: The new water and wastewater rates take effect Oct. 1. The city said staff will keep weighing a future drawdown with LCRA; today's numbers and the week ahead are in Weather, and the rest of the city's money is in Money & bills.
Sources: City of Austin (Austin Water rate schedule, effective Oct. 1), KXAN (the drought monitor), City of Austin (the drawdown cancellation), KXAN (the memo to council), KXAN (the data center investigation)
City Desk
Money & bills
Austin Water's rates go up at every tier on Oct. 1
The utility's published schedule for the coming budget year lifts the residential volume charge from $3.27 to $3.57 per 1,000 gallons on the first 2,000 gallons, and from $20.40 to $22.21 at the top tier. The five fixed minimum charges rise at all five tiers too, the smallest from $1.36 to $1.40 and the largest from $35.54 to $37. Customer Assistance Program households keep a waiver on that minimum. City of Austin
Austin schools will borrow $140 million in October to make payroll
Chief Financial Officer Katrina Montgomery told trustees Thursday the district must find $5.7 million more in cuts this year to avoid a deficit, and that low reserves mean borrowing through November at an estimated $2.1 million in interest and fees. "There is no savings account that we can go into," she said. The loan is repaid in January, once property tax money lands. Austin Current
Overheard on Reddit
Just FYI, Austin Water Rates will rise on October 1st
Just got an email from Austin water - a whole weeks notice. Yay! The new rates have been published here: https://services.austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm?id=478626
Also
Austin Independent School District (ISD) expects to spend $1.9 million more than planned on fuel this year; the Texas average price of diesel is around $5.50 a gallon, an energy analyst told KXAN. KXAN
Council approved 12-month extensions to more than a dozen Austin Public Health social service contracts Thursday, over Mayor Kirk Watson, who said he lacked the analysis council had asked staff for last week. KXAN
Council also took up folding 11 Austin Public Health agreements with Integral Care into one contract drawing $13,946,970 from the department's operating budget. KXAN
Council also put $500,000 into a loan interest buydown with the nonprofit PeopleFund, which the city estimates will support 75 to 100 small business loans in its first year. City of Austin
Public safety & courts
The federal officer who shot a man on Anderson Square was not wearing a body camera
Austin police video taken minutes after Sunday's shooting shows the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents standing by without cameras, six days before the agency's own end-of-September deadline to have them on. U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett said a 2025 directive already required them and that the agency "just doesn't seem to be enforcing it." ICE has not answered KVUE's questions. KVUE
A drug ten times stronger than fentanyl is turning up in Austin's supply
Austin-Travis County EMS logged 98 opioid overdose calls in the last 30 days, against 73 in September 2025, and nine patients needed more than two doses of Narcan. Two University of Texas accounts have warned students about cychlorphine, which is mixed into cocaine and heroin and is hard to catch on a standard test. FOX 7 Austin
Also
Celeste Garcia, 31, died Wednesday after a vehicle towing a trailer hit the Lime e-bike she was riding in the southbound 1700 block of South Lamar Boulevard, Austin police said. CBS Austin
A bicyclist was critically hurt Thursday afternoon at Old Koenig Lane and North Lamar Boulevard and taken to Dell Seton Medical Center, Austin-Travis County EMS said. KXAN
Police identified Dmario Antonie Jones, 24, as the man shot by a homeowner after entering a house in the 200 block of Virtus Bend early Wednesday; officers were called at 3:51 a.m. CBS Austin
Attorneys for Shane James Jr., accused of killing six people in Austin and San Antonio in December 2023, filed notice that they intend to raise an insanity defense at trial. KVUE
A married couple now faces charges connected to the 2024 death of Cristian Rangel, 24, whose body was found in the greenbelt; nobody has been charged with killing him. KXAN
Growth & infrastructure
The Lake Austin drawdown is off, and there is no new date
A joint Austin Water and Watershed Protection memo to council said the city heard from businesses about the fall wedding season, University of Texas football and Formula 1, and that the winter window LCRA offered would have hit holiday events on the lake. Staff will keep evaluating. People who bought permits for shoreline work are getting refunds. City of Austin
Council cleared the way for up to 1,000 apartments in Circle C, next to an elementary school
Two Thursday items rezoned Tract 110 from office to multifamily for developer Stratus and dropped a requirement to build the South Bay Lane extension. The Protect Circle C Coalition's Lisa Lyons said the replacement access point on Dahlgreen Avenue sits about 500 feet from Kiker Elementary and sends traffic through the school zone. FOX 7 Austin
Also
The Texas attorney general's office is investigating data center developments in Travis and 17 other counties that did not answer the Texas Water Development Board's survey on their water use. KXAN
Overheard on Reddit
Has Driving in Austin Always Been This Dangerous?
I moved here a couple years ago and I feel like I’m fending for my life every day when I drive in downtown. People driving straight through right turn only lanes, red light runners, pedestrians running in front of your car. Has it always been like this? This is just from this week of driving.
The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) called the Oak Hill Parkway done: seven rebuilt miles of US 290 and SH 71 at the interchange drivers call the Y. FOX 7 Austin
Austin-Bergstrom International Airport said rideshare pickup moves closer to the terminal in 2027 and the Red Garage will come down for a new arrivals and departures hall, due in the early 2030s. KXAN
A bridge strike closed southbound Interstate 35 at Onion Creek Parkway before 6 a.m. Friday; one lane had reopened by 6:34, and police said nobody was hurt. CBS Austin
The city has not yet been served with the Save Our Springs and People Organized in Defense of Earth and Her Resources (PODER) lawsuit over the Dog's Head deal, a spokesperson said Thursday. KXAN
City Hall & county
Candidates in all five Austin council races on the November ballot missed deadlines for required financial disclosures, filings due Aug. 24 and Sept. 8 that carry fines from $500. Community Impact
Overheard on Reddit
Check your voter registration to ensure it’s active
October 5th (voter registration deadline) is approaching and Texas screwed up. They’re sitting on thousands of voter registrations that have yet to be processed due to an error. This is the Texas Secretary of State’s official “Am I Registered?” lookup. Verify that your registration is active.
Council directed the city manager Thursday to draft an ordinance widening which businesses must keep an automated external defibrillator (AED) on site; city code now requires them only above 75 feet. KXAN
Council also asked for a study of what the defibrillator rule would cost businesses and an equity analysis of where the devices are missing, by geography and business size. KXAN
Schools
Austin ISD is short more than 2,000 students, and the money follows the child
About 6,400 students who finished last year did not come back, while 8,500 new ones arrived, district leaders said Thursday. Of those who left, 41% went somewhere the district cannot identify, 39% moved away and 20% went to charter, private, virtual or home schooling. The gap could cost an estimated $14 million in revenue. Austin Current
Also
Superintendent Matias Segura said parents at Burnet and Webb middle schools, not the district, should decide whether to invoke a petition that asks the state to close the campuses instead of taking over. Austin Current
Both campuses drew a fifth failing rating from the Texas Education Agency (TEA) last month; the ratings are under appeal and final marks are expected in December. Austin Current
About 400 Lamar Middle School students walked out at the start of third period Wednesday to protest immigration enforcement, Principal Travis Brunner wrote to families; about 30 stayed out past fourth. CBS Austin
The University of Texas at Austin cut every Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies course from its core curriculum, including "Women and the Holocaust"; the catalog is finalized Oct. 1. KUT
Business & street life
The Uncle Jay Show ran on KTBC from 1953 to 1977, filling time between cartoons with birthday parties, and KUT spent this week trying to find one Austinite who sat on those bleachers. KUT
Overheard on Reddit
Volunteering in Austin: Meals on Wheels needs Friday drivers, about an hour a week
Last May I posted here asking for summer delivery help (https://www.reddit.com/r/Austin/comments/1knjl5c/meals_on_wheels_central_texas_needs_your_help/), and a lot of you actually followed through! Several of you are still on routes a year later. Thank you, that genuinely moved the needle. I'm back with a narrower ask this time: Fridays. Friday is the day we have the hardest time covering.
Mendocino Farms opened at 1100 S. Lamar Blvd. on Sept. 22, and the Spanish tapas bar Casa Fina is due on Josephine Street in the Zilker neighborhood this month. Community Impact
Domain Northside marked ten years this week, the retail and restaurant half of the North Austin district that opened in 2016. Community Impact
Overheard on Reddit
Books. I don’t want to sell them, but I have a thousand or 2 to give to good homes
I searched here, there, everywhere for the best place for this. Mods remove it freely if you need to. My situation is that I have been collecting books for 60 years and have reached the point where I can no longer comfortably read(for context, for most of my life since the age of 6, I have read a book a day on average.) I now have to listen to books, which is not a complaint, it just means that…
Twin brothers Nikolai and Simon Haas, who lived in Austin from ages 3 to 19, open "Haas Brothers: Uncanny Valley" to the public at the Blanton Museum of Art on Sunday. CBS Austin
Weather
Today: mostly sunny, high near 99, heat index as high as 101, east northeast wind 0 to 5 miles per hour. Tonight: partly cloudy, low around 74. No alerts are active this morning. National Weather Service
The U.S. Drought Monitor released Thursday put parts of Travis, Bastrop and Williamson counties in extreme drought, the first time since June 2, and widened severe drought across Central Texas. KXAN
KXAN's forecast team said dew points fall into the lower 60s today, which will not touch the heat but will take the stickiness out of it, and that highs this weekend stay in the upper 90s. KXAN
A slight rain chance returns Sunday, and from Tuesday through Thursday forecasters are watching a low to the west to drag the season's first cold front through Central Texas. KXAN
The Back Page
7 days until the Austin City Limits (ACL) Festival's first weekend · The Great Lawn at Zilker Park is closed for build-out; the festival runs Oct. 2-4 and Oct. 9-11.
Pascal Kerong'A could not get a venue to book him, because Austin clubs want to see that you can sell tickets and he had never headlined here to prove it. So he did it backwards. He picked a night in early September, put a ticket page up before he had a room, and told his followers what he was doing. "I told them that venues want proof, and I don't have any proof," he said. "And I want you guys to be my proof." Someone interested in managing him had put it plainly: you are not Beyoncé. The tickets sold. Kerong'A and his four-piece band played the room at How Much?! Studios in Central Austin this month, and the 42-year-old soul-rock singer, who has toured with Bill Callahan, has his proof now. KUT