Florida Drought 2007 Photos and Video
Posted by Jeff Gammons on 04 Apr 2007 at 7:17 am
Tagged as: Florida Weather, Storm Photography, Drought
The severe drought of 2007 continues now into 2008. Please see the latest severe water restriction put into place for Florida and the latest Lake Okeechobe pictures and water levels as of Feb 2008.
Note: There will be updated photos to this blog post story covering the Florida drought event on May 31, 2007 New drought Pictures added
The current ongoing severe drought in Florida continues to get worst, and my tour around Lake Okeechobee on Tuesday and the surrounding area’s proves that it’s much worst than I thought. As your going to see in the follow Lake Okeechobee, Florida drought photographs, the lake is in some trouble and this is really going to affect all of South Florida. The lake is the main water source for much of Southern Florida, including the millions that live between West Palm Beach and Miami. The lake is currently over five feet below normal, and becoming a mud mess. In some of these pictures you can see I marked the normal water levels, and it’s clearly easy to see how low the water really is.
Some area’s of the lake are so low you can walk well out onto the dried out lake bed. I have lived in Okeechobee for about fours years now, and South Florida my entire life, and I have never seen Lake Okeechobee this low before. I’m mean this is really depressing to see the lake in such shape, plus to know that there are no signs of drought busting rains in sight.
Florida Drought Video Clip:
I put together a short two and half minute video clip of some of my travels on Tuesday around some of the very noticeable area’s of very low water levels. The video is 12mb and in Windows Media Player format. Florida Drought Video Stream Watch Now
There are some small chances of rain for central Florida this afternoon ahead of a weakening cold front, but nothing expected to really reach the South Florida area. Only a shower or two possible, and much more than that is needed. Tighter water restrictions are expected later this week or into next week as the water levels continue to drop. South Florida Water Management says, not everyone is watch their water used and sprinklers systems are still running during the peak of the day everyday. Soon lawn watering will be cut down to once a day if at all if the drought continues to get worst.
I will follow up on this next week and continue to monitoring drought conditions, shoot video and photos, and just the overall progression of the 2007 Florida drought.
Related Florida Drought and Fire Posts:
- Okeechobee City Lightning Wildfire Video & Pictures - July 20, 2007
- Florida Drought Reaches Historic Levels, Updated Pictures - May 31, 2007
- Lake Okeechobee Florida / Buckhead Ridge Wildfire Video - 5/30/07
- Frog Light Wildfire, Lake Okeechobee Pictures, Drought - 5/29/07
- Georgia & Florida Wildfires, Smoke Over Takes Florida - 5/11/07
- Florida Drought 2007 Scenes, Severe Levels Now - 5/1/07
- Large Florida Brush Fires - April 2007
- Florida Drought 2007, Drought Photos
- Florida Needs A Hurricane Right About Now
- Florida Wildfire, Drought Conditions 2007
- Georgia Wildfire Takes 14 Homes, Everglades Broward Brushfire - April 19, 2007
(10 votes, average: 4.8 out of 5)
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Whoa…I agree and good tropical system is needed and needed quick.
Rick
Last time they showed the dried up lake bottom they said it would take 5 to 10 years to come back to a normal level. A couple of months later they were draining the excess water off the lake. Right now we have a serious problem and watering should be cut way back or stopped altogether but in two months we’ll be pumping it into the everglades again. We need to cut back during the dry season BEFORE we get dangerously low, not after. Drive through half of the gated communities around SWFLA and you’ll see who’s wasting it on landscaping. Thank God the golf courses are still green.
I can’t understand why I still see so many people watering lawns in the middle of the day. Tighter water restrictions are on the way. Next monday should drop some bad news for business owners thay use a lot of water.
Man it’s nice and hot today. I’m not looking forward to that cold front up there.
Umm, I’m looking forward to that cold front. It’s the last I’ll see of 40 degrees until November.
Those pics show it all. Thats bad.
We aren’t too bad yet up here all though it’s very dry. Most of the lakes are way down around here also. Some even un-fishable.
We still have April and May to go before the rainy season starts.
The pictures and video are crazy. As you know, I’ve been down your way many times and spent time around the Lake. The most impressive photo was of the “Pier” that is right now the City of Okeechobee. Normally the water starts right at the shoreline at the beginning of the dock, whereas now the dock is almost all on dry land.
The only question I would be that I guess that during a tropical system the Lake and canals could handle more rain. But sometimes that not good either because all the run-off damage and leeching of the top soil.
Plus it look really ugly to see all that concrete and boulders that normally protect the Lake’s shoreline from erosion.
I’ll wish for rain for ya.
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I live in Palm Beach, Florida and i was in Palm Beach Gardens visiting my gandmother esterdayand as i came home my 2 children were curious about the huge clod of smoke, as we came closer to it, we realized there was a brusch fire, they had police line everywhere, my car is a convertible and when the fire then came closer and rapiddly enlarging I was afraid to go any closer because of the fabric on my car and the burning ashes, yes thats how close this was. They had over a dozen fire truxks and a house bigger than my neighborhood raised about 100-200 feet above the ground. It was very frightening but if you were there you would have been in amazment. My 13 year old daughter had gotten footage of this event, but to bad i cant attach it to this.
Hey, thanks for posting these fotos… and hope you will keep posting similar fotos… it’s starting to sound like Australia, drought-wise in Florida… people better start praying for a wet hurricane season, because what is going on now is scary. Especially all the builders just wanting to tie-in more houses at a time of drought.
North central Florida here and we’ve only had 1/2″ of rainfall since the 1″ we received the first week of March. It appears that most folks have given up on lawn watering as the view on my commute from Starke to Jacksonville is showing an increase in wilting and dieing grass. Just 2 years ago, our 18 acres had a good stand of self established carpet grass which has now dried up and disappeared. We need several tropical storms or minor hurricanes to refill our lakes and swamps. We continue to see the population of Florida explode and the pressure being placed on her water supply increase so where does it end? maybe now if we don’t get any significantant rainfall soon…great photos of Lake Okeechobee and reminds me of Keystone Heights (aquifer recharge area) where Dupont, Florida Rock and the large fern growing farms have managed to turn the once thriving lakes into mud puddles.
Gary - Doing a follow up photo series in the next day or two of the Lake. It’s now May and about 4 weeks since I took the photos. The water levels have dropped of even more, so it should show well in the next update.
Great site, Jeff! I’m very glad to have come across it today while searching online. Excellent photos and information.
I can’t help thinking: although the water restrictions help, it’s not enough.
Florida needs to enact a strict moratorium on the number of permits issued to builders of new development for houses and condominiums until we get a handle on how to manage our water supply. Over 1,000 people a day move into our state, and the developers are building new subdivisions and condominiums to house them all across the state. Our water supply simply does not have the capability to sustain this rate of growth over the long run.
I’m a Miami native and am currently living over in the Tampa Bay area. Every time I drive across the state and see the fringes of development spreading outward (especially near the Everglades), I cringe.
Good job on the pictures. Cant count the Spec dinners I have eaten out of Lake O in years past. I wont eat fish from Lake O now. Old Florida boy of many generations. Born and raised in North Florida, Palatka area. Grandfather had home on Big Lake in Keystone Heights. When I was a little boy in the days of wooden water skies, Cypress Gardens and no Walt Disney World (1950’s) his lake was full to the rim, crystal clear, spring fed. I grew up on Lake Crescent, part of the St Johns system, 19 miles long lake. You can walk accross that lake now in Keystone Heights. I have lived in Ft Pierce Florida since 1981. Retired from FPL now. Florida is in trouble. Ask your self, how could a state with so much freash water run out. There is still talk of pipe lines to North Florida to supply the never ending population growth down here in this end of the State. I have thought seriously of selling and moving to Alabama. Last year the Northern St Johns had an algie bloom just like the St lucie river here. First time ever I have seen that on the St johns. (sad)
Laura / Jim -
Welcome to the blog. Yes things are pretty bad and a lot of water is being wasted each day. Hoping for some heavy rains today. Yesterday brought some inland storms, and we need more of those over Lake Okeechobee.
Miami - Lizzy, Welcome to the blog too.
Yeah this is the worst drought in a long time for Florida. It’s going to take a few tropical systems to catch us up, if that. I am worried about the fires that are likely next.
Has anyone forgot that the water always comes back.And soon it will be flooded again.Loop road may be closed due to too much water over the road.Not that this is not a problem,but please remember,it is a cycle of fire and rain that is quite normal.True that every time the SFWMD trys to fix it,its worse again.But even they cant turn off the rainy season,or maybe they would try to.Get your lawnmowers ready.And prepare for hurricane.Possible closures in the Big Cypress due to “high water” coming soon.
i am sure you are right, however i can’t help but notice that the “weather” is not exactly behaving according to normal patterns, even if it did the water crisis would still overtake us. we are simply using water (along with almost all other resources on this planet) faster than they can be replaced. you can google ground water levels if you want, when i did i found out that year over year for the last 10 years at least we have been pumping water out of the ground faster than the rainy season replaces it. it doesn’t take a genius to see that at some point we will be short of good clean drinking water. now if the rainy season should be less or late or skips a year because of other global heating events like the little understood el nino/la nina evnts, we could be in real trouble
ron
Last year Texas had a drought , this year back to normal levels in lake travis, and for some parts of Texas …. well flooding !!!
As for using too much of the planets water,,,, well the last time I checked , water has no way to leave the planet , so I say there is just as much water on the earth as there was 1 million years ago!
Come on people water has NO way to leave the Earth , as the enviromentalist try to claim…..
Texas has been in a drought further back than last year. The last few tornado chase season when I was out there, Texas in most locations were 5-8 inches below normal for the season.
You all have really made up some nice rainfall totals so far this spring, and I’m glad to see it.
Our drought started last summer and continues…all part of the weather cycles. When some places are dry to the bone with wildfires, others are flooded out. The balance of pressure and moisture on earth always in motion.
Thanks for the comment Dave.
well dave thanks to Jeff we have some fantastic photos of lake okeechobee and other waterways, it seems that, although the water has not left the planet, it did go somewhere else, either in the atmosphere or into the ocean, wherever it went it is making life a little difficult for all us critters here in florida. it seems to me that the weather patterns have changed. the drought of 2001 was broken by 8 hurricanes in 2 years, unusual in themselves, not the return over what i observe to be normal rainy season thunderstorm activity
btw , thanks jeff for a really informative site, i enjoy it a lot, hope you can continue to keep us posted, it’s hard to get the whole news from the news
Hey Jeff,
First let me say that you have a really well-constructed site here, and you’re making available some very handy resources for people not only in Florida (I am) but elsewhere who are working to develop a rational understanding of our weather phenomena and climate. This series on Lake Okeechobee, for example, is excellent from a documentary standpoint but really disturbing from meteorological and climatological standpoints.
That’s why I don’t really agree with your comment that what we’re seeing (here and elsewhere) is “all part of the weather cycles.” I think that the systems are going serious awry. I used to think (vigorously so) that all this climate change stuff was just a bunch of alarmist hooey, but all I knew about the issues I learned from popular media, so I thought that I really ought to read a few articles from scientific journals just so I could pacify my alarmist friends.
That was about four months ago, and I’m still reading the articles. What I’m finding in the scientific media really is alarming. Systems around the world that have been stable for hundreds to thousands of years have started to undergo massive and rapid changes. The sheer number of systems that are undergoing change is disturbing, but the obvious magnitude of those changes is even more worrisome.
I grew up in Punta Gorda at Charlotte Harbor, but left here in the early 70s and only recently returned. Of course I expected to see substantial development, but I didn’t expect to see such massive changes in the ecosystem itself. Punta Gorda is *not* embedded in the same ecosystem that I knew when I was growing up. The rich natural luxuriance of the land has given way to sear brittleness. I don’t believe that this change is a temporary one brought on by a year or so of drought. The land has fundamentally changed, and in a relatively short time.
I just checked the Drought Monitor. Close to half of the landmass of the US is presently in drought conditions, ranging from abnormally dry to extreme; all of Florida is suffering drought, from moderate to extreme. This situation just doesn’t seem like a natural weather pattern to me.
Lune
Lune - Great comment post! Thanks! I’d like to follow up with you later. Just getting ready to hit the road for the day, but just wanted you to know I have read your post.
Until later…
“This situation just doesn’t seem like a natural weather pattern to me.”
I don’t believe it is. Everyone should check out our forums
at ClimatePatrol.com.
And Jeff- Awesome Pics ! You should post a couple of these
on our site.
peace,
DanG
- Englewood FL
Thanks Dan - I’ll have to check out the forums.
Well it’s the third week of June and we have only had that one weekend of heavy rain and not a drop since. This is the time of year we should be getting daily rain showers in the late afternoon, now we are getting NOTHING. Something seems wrong here.
I know - Were still running below normal for June rains, let alone for the last year. A tropical wave is forecast to move through over the next few days, so this should help increase some rain chances.
Weather manipulation is what’s going on. If you go to Youtube and type in the name Skywitness, you will be able to view my videos documenting what is called the chemtrails that military and commercial looking jets have been spraying in the atmosphere over the Orlando and Winter Park area. These are not normal contrails which come from a jet. There has been a lot of chemtrail activity over our skys and they play some kind of part in why there is a lack of rain in our area. Check out the videos and look up information on scalar waves and the role they play in weather manipulation.
Hi,
Just stumbled across your site looking for some info on what the lake level is now in the month of Sept. for 2007….I’m in the Fort Lauderdale area and we have been getting downpours steadily for well over a week now…has any of this been hitting the lake area? If so how many inches and what is the status of drought there now????
Thanks
Beth
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Like Beth, I stumbled on this site for the same reason. I have been reading of the real water problems in the SE of US. Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and could be involving FL. again. That is a message everyone should be looking into, and right now!!!!.
[…] Today and Saturday will be primed for red flag fire warnings almost state wide in Florida, and likely much of the Southeast. The strong northerly flow behind the cold front, and the very dry atmosphere filtering into the region, will increase the wild fire danger significantly. Very low dew points later today and the brisk winds, along with recent dry weather with little rain making dry ground conditions, will become almost perfect wildfire fuel. Be responsible over the next few days with cigarettes, camping and cooking out, especially at interior Florida locations where little rain has fallen the last few weeks. There’s been enough wildfires this year from the ongoing two year drought, and now weather conditions are becoming ripe once again to fuel large brushfires. Play it safe… […]
[…] Florida has been experiencing a severe drought the last 15 months or so, and November and December have been very dry, outside of a few small rain events. The grounds and vegetation is extremely dry, and any freezing weather will only add to the issues on the ground. Dead fields of brush and tree’s from freezing temperatures will make way for even more fuel for wildfires later this winter and early spring like in 2007. Another very active wildfire season is forecast for the Southeast and Florida due to drought. This latest cold snap could be the beginning for fire headlines in the coming months here in Florida, so not only is this a threat to Farmers now for agriculture interests, it’s also a threat to home owners and visitors later this spring when the wildfires return. […]
[…] Lake Okeechobee, South Florida main backup water supply, continues to be almost 4 feet below normal for this time of year, and is much lower than this time last year as we were heading into the worst of the drought in 2007. Were well into the dry season here now, and the lake level continues to slowly drop, but is expected to drop more rapidly as we move into the warmer spring months. The Florida rainy season does not begin until May, so several long months ahead of low rain will only add to the major drought issues. […]
[…] Florida Drought Photos and Video 2007 […]
[…] This time last year I was blogging about Florida drought, wildfire video and high pressure ridging over the Deep South and Florida. It’s much nicer to have the opportunity to chase even linear storms than sit under a smoke filled March sky wishing just for some showers. It should be a enjoyable afternoon for this Florida Storm Chaser just to get out and geek it up with the weather. I’ll try an