Florida Drought 2007 Scenes, Severe Levels Now
Posted by Jeff Gammons on 02 May 2007 at 5:50 am
Tagged as: Florida Weather, Storm Photography, Drought
I toured hard hit drought area’s in central and southern Florida on Monday, and one of my main stops was Lake Okeechobee. The lake, some 44 miles across, provides water supply to the east and west coasts of Florida’s metro area’s. Were talking millions of people here that use this water supply everyday. The lake levels have dropped to record levels not seen in over 50 years. South Florida Water Management, held a press conference on Monday, which I attended, 
and invited media from both coasts of the state to help show how bad the 2007 Florida drought has become. They feel since people living on the coasts can’t see how low water levels are well inland, that they are ignoring the strict water restrictions now in place to help conserve our fresh water supplies.
Water managers say it’ll likely take more than just one wet season to undo the rain deficit. There is also the chance of below normal summer rainfall totals due to La Nina. Florida encounters less rainfall during La Nina summer seasons, and this 
will only add to the drought issues. “If you would imagine 3 feet of rainfall coming over this lake anytime soon - we would still be in a drought,” said Chip Merriam, Deputy Executive Director of South Florida Water Management District.
It’s going to take a good slow moving tropical system to help put just a little dent in this severe drought. The wildfires have yet to come. I mean wildfires everywhere, as lightning starts new fires every afternoon. Once the daily lightning storm season starts here, there will be likely wildfires in many locations as there is dry brush from coast to coast. There lays tons of hurricane brush and tree debris from the hurricanes of 2004-2005 thats fuel just waiting to catch fire. I bet the 4th of July this year will have firework bans like back in 1997 when it was extremely dry.
I shot a lot of video scenes and follow up photos of area from back on April 4, 2007 Florida drought photos and video update. I’m going to post a follow article to these photos along with the new ones to show how much the water level has changed over the last 4 weeks. Look for this post in the coming days.
The rainy season normally starts by May 20th each late spring, and we can only hope it’s on time this year. Hurricane season starts in 4 weeks, and if would were lucky enough to get a slow moving weak tropical depression or storm, that would help so much rain wise.
Stay tuned to this blog for continuing coverage of the Florida 2007 severe drought.
Related Florida Drought Posts:
Florida Drought Photos and Video 2007 - (Part One)
Florida Drought Lake Okeechobee area photos - Mar 2007
Florida Needs A Hurricane Right About Now
Southeast Georgia Wildfires, Smoke Satellite Loop
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Very intense scenes. I hope you guys get rain decent rains soon.
Thanks - There is a slight chance of some rain along the east southeast coast this morning and some isolated storms along the sea breeze later this afternoon. One can hope.
Jeff, I know what you mean. Things here are getting awfully scary with the dry conditions, with fires popping up daily. That Waycross fire still burns, and the air feels just stagnant. When the winds shift, this area becomes covered in a blanket of thick smoke that burns my lungs. I wish it would hurry up and rain. Unfortunately, our next shot at rain isn’t until this weekend.
Wow, I realy didn’t know it was that intence.
Yeah getting bad - We did get some storms yesterday, but nothing that will put a dent in this. More convection expected today.
It appears that the media, and TWC in my opinion is the most guilty, is masking the severity of the drought and just how bad it really is. They don’t want to alarm everyone and really stress the need to conserve water and this is where I would like to see Jeff’s photos, videos and reports really get some attention on TV, Radio and in the newspapers so people will WAKE UP!!!…Florida is reaching a point where it can not continue to support this booming population increase but God forbid that the state put a limit on new arivals or for that matter, vacationing but it is taking a toll on this states ecological balance BIG TIME! are there any people left up north? one of our local meteorologist’s here in NCF just now mentioned that Okeechobee is 9 feet below normal! The air here is just like Dew said, thick with smoke, stagnant and low humidity so with all this dry air over us, north Florida and south Georgia don’t stand much of a chance of getting rain anytime soon. The situation is deplorable and continuing to worsen on a daily basis…PRAY FOR RAIN!!!
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