Steve Quiring, a professor in the Department of Geography, said Austin is experiencing the sixth driest year ever recorded, with only 15 inches of rain this year -- half the normal year-to-date rainfall of 30 inches per year.

"(Hurricane) Ike didn't really make much of a dent in the drought," Quiring said Thursday in a release. "And the outlook does not look very promising -- for the rest of this year and through the winter, drought-like conditions are expected to persist for most of the state."