Tarrant County cities are on the verge of entering "state one" of the emergency drought plan which would bring additional water restrictions to residents and businesses.
Fort Worth is already limiting outdoor watering to just twice a week with no watering allowed on Mondays or any day between the hours of 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.
Smart water meters installed by the city of Fort Worth collect and send data about water usage and officials said they've noticed a high number of people not following the rules.
Because of low lake levels, city officials said they'll be keeping a close eye on next week's rainfall and that even a few cloudy days could help reduce water consumption.
Get top local stories in DFW delivered to you every morning. >Sign up for NBC DFW's News Headlines newsletter.
"You've got to realize that the loss to surface water to lakes is not only from use, but It's also from evaporation. So, if you have rainfall you have clouds. So, you're reducing evaporation. Even if no rain falls, the clouds will reduce the evaporative loss in the lakes," said Mary Gugliuzza, with the Fort Worth Water Department.
Cloud cover even makes people use less water in their grass or in their pools, bringing down water usage as a whole.
