Florida's drought report: not all rain data included for most

Most of Florida received rain this week. Rainfall impacted the western Peninsula for several days throughout last weekend due to a stationary front that stayed over the Panhandle for much of the weekend. As the week progressed, especially in the first half, the rainfall continued to move south, also affecting much of Central and South Florida. Luckily, the rainfall that impacted South Florida completely extinguished the wildfire that burned over 11,000 acres in western Broward.

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We knew this wouldn’t be enough rain to make a huge dent in the drought, but it did bring small improvements in the western portion of the Peninsula, which is clearly noticeable in the latest drought report released on Thursday, May 14.

Keep in mind that the drought report is released on Thursdays, but the cutoff date for the rainfall data is two days prior, on Tuesday. This is the main reason we are seeing improvement in the drought across the western portion of the Peninsula, mainly over Escambia and Santa Rosa counties, which are now under a severe drought, with the southern half of Santa Rosa County still experiencing extreme drought. Jackson and Washington counties, just west of Tallahassee, also improved their drought category from exceptional to extreme.

The reason we didn’t see much improvement across Central and South Florida is that the rain that fell, especially in South Florida, with some isolated areas accumulating over 3 inches, was because of the timing of the data cutoff. Remember, much of the rain fell on Tuesday and Wednesday, mainly in the afternoon. Therefore, this rainfall is not included in the latest drought report released on May 15, as the data cutoff was on Tuesday, May 12, in the morning.

If we look really closely at Palm Beach and Broward counties, the latest drought report shows that the moderate and severe drought actually crept a bit farther east, covering many areas across eastern Broward and southeastern Palm Beach County. But as I mentioned, this has to be taken with a grain of salt, as the data does not include the rain that fell on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Is there any hope in the forecast for rain?

The rainy season has officially started across much of Florida. Mother Nature seems to be getting the initial memo about this start. We will have a high-pressure system located just over the eastern Atlantic. This high-pressure system will bring a south-southeasterly flow across much of the Peninsula, keeping the moisture stream constant across Florida. By keeping this moisture stream flowing over the state and providing ample heat for the atmosphere to become unstable, we will have typical sea breezes develop. With moisture from the Atlantic, we can expect afternoon thunderstorms to develop mainly across the Peninsula, extending from South Florida through the southern part of North Florida.

We will remain under this southeasterly flow for much of next week, allowing a semi-constant-to-constant pattern to stay put, with humidity, plenty of daytime heat, and typical afternoon thunderstorms.

By next weekend, we could be looking at a front that will come close to the Southeast. If this materializes, we could be dealing with a stationary front that will bring rain, especially across the Panhandle, over the weekend. If this front moves a little farther south, it could bring more unstable weather across the Peninsula, but we will continue to monitor its evolution throughout the week and bring you updates.