Florida Needs A Hurricane Right About Now. What?
Posted by Jeff Gammons on 01 Apr 2007 at 4:38 pm
Tagged as: Florida Weather, Jeffs Personal
Florida needs a hurricane right about now. “What did he just say?” Yeah I said it, Florida truly needs a slow moving Tropical Storm or Weak Hurricane to help put a huge dent in this ongoing drought we are currently experiencing. The drought conditions are getting worst each day, and everyone is starting to be affected by all the dry weather. I myself have a brown front lawn, palm tree’s with a sick yellow look, and a normally 7 foot waterway behind my house that’s now knee deep, and with no boat traffic anymore. Lake Okeechobee is more than several feet below normal, and this is affecting the normal busy late winter early spring bass fishing season.
The Florida inland agricultural is also taking a hard hit, with water restrictions and little water to use for the Sugar Cane, sod fields, sweet corn and much more. Water restrictions are in place for all of southeast Florida covering several million residents. South Florida Water Management warns that if we don’t receive some substantial rainfall in the coming weeks that there will be tighter water restrictions and some banned water use.
Ok now, relax. Maybe not a hurricane, but a slow moving tropical wave, depression or even a tropical storm would be great right about now. Sure will can deal with some winds, but bring on the 5-10 inches of rain. It’s going to take a good tropical system to get us back to a normal water level in surrounding area lakes and canals. Simply the start of the rainy season is not going to clear this all up. Sure it will help it from becoming worst, and help get our lawn back into shape, but for the long-term, we need a large amount of rain. A tropical storm or system can bring up to a foot of rainfall. Another good way to receive some heavy rains without the threat of a tropical wind storms is to have a old cold front frontal boundary stall over us for a week and just rain. I’ll take either one right about now. At least all the spring breakers are enjoying the hot cloud free beaches this spring.
Florida is still hurting from last years below rainfall season, and our very dry winter and now spring. There is no relief in sight and the days are getting longer and the temperatures are rising. Soon were all going to have wildfire issues to deal with and more intense water restrictions. We’ve had several weeks now of high pressure ridging over the western Atlantic and Florida keeping all the cold fronts and precipitation with the fronts well west and north of the southeast United States and Florida. If this ridging keeps going, we just might have to deal with a hurricane later this summer.
Wishing for rain, more rain and tropical cyclone heavy rains.
(6 votes, average: 4.83 out of 5)
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As strange as it might sound, a hurricane would absolutely take a nice chunk out of the drought indices in Florida. Get a nice weak Category I, and you could get a lot of rain for as little damage as possible.
I agree.
know any hurricane dances??:>)
Greg,
Great to have you and thanks for the comments. Yeah I agree we really could use a tropical system for a fast rain pickup. Each day this is only getting worst and current forecast models don’t paint any signs of good rains over the next week.
Eyetothesky - No don’t know any hurricane dances, but I might be making up one here real soon. I’ll have to pitch it to FOX’s “So You Think You Can Dance” this summer.
I’m leaning toward the predictions being closer to accurate… more westward tracking systems… I will be getting my tracking map ready towards the end of May.
In order to effectively do a RAIN DANCE– There must be a full moon on both sides participating…..LOL… A Tropical Storm would be a nice change to help this drought…….. Many of the old timers I have spoken with lately state that fact—- It looks like Mother Earth is gearing us up for a wet hurricane season indeed….We need dribbles first so the hard dry ground can be acclamated first so we don’t have a major gush of water and it doesn’t soak into the ground….Diva
I remember the last bad drought in central and south Florida during 1980-81. I was working as an equipment operator in Melbourne and saved 2 million in townhomes that were being constructed from burning down, when 2 moron electricians decided to build a fire to bend some pvc pipe. Lake Okeechobee also reached record low levels back then and fires were everywhere in the state. And the only thing that saved S. Florida’s rear-end was hurricane Dennis. It dumped over 20 inches of rain in a 24 hour period on S. Florida and I remember there was standing water out in west Broward for months after that. There’s only one problem with that much water that fast. South Florida does not have a resovoir system to capture the water, so SFWMD drains it to the ocean. Factor into that, most of South Florida has been paved over with the wetlands that held and filtered that water are gone forever. That winter 1980-81, we broke record low temps in Melbourne. It seems the same weather pattern is being repeated during La Nina, as near record lows were also recorded in central Florida. When this drought breaks, it’s going to be bad, real bad. Anyone have plans for an arc?