Will a tropical depression save Florida's drought.

[DESTRUCTION5]

Destruction5 your under water restrictions too, like us in Palm Beach County.

Your right Boca...They just don't make it very public. Funny how it seems like yesterday Sept 04 Stuart had 32" of rain in the month of sept now were in a drought..

[MomH]

I don't know about maps, statistics and such. I just know that when I look out my back window the canal I live on is 6-7 feet below normal and the lowest I have seen it in the 15 years I've lived here. As for conserving water--I never water the lawn-- only flowers when I first put them in. Not putting any in this year. Luckily I have that type of grass that has the huge running roots that tend to go deep.

[Downdraft]

Florida's drought has been traditionally solved by tropical weather. I haven't done the research but I believe it's connected to the Azores high. As for something in the area of 10 inches plus no thanks. While the retention areas could hold the water right now it wouldn't help in the long run. A good measure of drought besides the Palmer Index is the Keetch Byram drought index. That measures the top several inches of forest floor and is widely used by forestry and firefighters in the prediction of how wildfire will behave. The KBDI is extremely high across most of Florida. Heavy rains will not do much to put moisture back in the soil What we need is a good long term moderate soaker.

We are depleting Florida's fresh water faster than we can replace it. Salt water intrusion has become a very real problem not to mention that most of Florida rests on limestone and dry limestone turns to dust creating sinkholes. Hopefully when the "wet" season comes the conditions for the sea-breeze to provide lift will develop and we can get back into the cycle of daily afternoon rains. Those rains though come at a high price. No other state even comes close to the number of lightning related fatalities that central Florida has every year.

What we don't need early in the season is a tropical storm that deletes capacity for retention holding areas. If we fill them up to early and then get more storms we go to flood conditions pretty quickly. Florida is always in a state of feast or famine I guess.

[MiamiensisWx]

Great points, Downdraft. Many long-term Florida droughts have abated due to heavy precipitation from tropical storms. Meso boundaries, surface fronts, and developing surface lows that approach the peninsula during the spring and summer months can also bring widespread rainfall. During the previous month, a broken squall line formed under weak divergence (and surface convergence) ahead of a surface front (and mid-level trough) and brought light to moderate precipitation across most of south Florida. This relief cut the KBDI index across Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade, and Monroe counties by 50 percent. Despite the rainfall, this event only reduced dry conditions in the surface layers of the soil. True drought relief must be a prolonged event, and passing systems do not stunt ongoing dry situations. In addition, the areas that needed relief (the Lake Okeechobee and interior regions) received very little precipitation. Even if precipitation was excessive, the effects on overall drought conditions are usually localized (or marginal). Soil conditions near the surface quickly return to a drier state; thus, drought conditions have continued across south Florida.

Another important factor is the evolution of the paths of tropical waves. Weak surface features or easterly waves (or features associated with tropical waves) can bring consistent precipitation to southeast Florida. If surface ridging persists in the western Atlantic, tropical waves (or other low-level features) can move westward into Florida. Homegrown tropical development in the Bahamas can produce widespread rainfall, as evidenced in 2005 by the passage of Category 1 Katrina in Miami-Dade and Broward counties. Unfortunately, the end results are widespread power outages and extensive wind damages.

This recent drought event underscores the challenges of sustaining the excessive population growth in the state of Florida. Better water management practices are a necessity but the current powers in charge (South Florida Water Management District and other agencies) unfortunately have compounded the situation for many years. The pressures of development have been worsened by inefficient or wasteful management strategies.

[hial2]

There has to be a way to conserve all the water that's discarded every time a tropical system approaches SFl..I bet 10x the water received during Ernesto was dumped in the ocean..there has to be a way to back pump that water into Lake Okechobee..

[HURRICANELONNY]

I heard on the radio today that S. Florida will most likely goto Phase III. Don't know what it means per water use but it seems pretty bad.

[hial2]

Phase III means you have to conserve water by sharing baths...

[HurricaneJoe22]

In Phase III, you have to bring your lawn into the shower with you in order to water it.

[HURRICANELONNY]

Your both wrong. In Phase III you can only use the toilet once a day unless for use on your lawn.

[boca]

When we get into phase 4 you can only shower on the weekends. Sat even , Sun odd. When you do shower to conserve water you have to shower when the sprinklers go on at 4 am. No more showering indoors because of the water pressure.

[Scorpion]

I find it ridiculous the amount of lawn watering that goes on. Every single square of grass it seems has a sprinkler attached to it. If we could just shut off the sprinklers for the useless grass it would make things so much better.

[HURRICANELONNY]

IT MIGHT HAPPEN

[hiflyer]

What's the old hurricane adage? If it is yellow let it mellow if it is brown flush it down?

We are certainly not there yet in SoFla! It always is amazing that we sit on water down here...go 4 feet down anywhere and you are in it....water water everywhere and not a drop to drink!! It's the fresh water flow in the Sea Of Grass...the glades....that is so low. The more that is not being replenished underground by that flow and the more we pump out the faster the ocean is coming in under the beaches into our coastal wells rendering them useless. And I would venture to say that we will see more sink holes in the next few months as a side effect.

Remember that 'un-named' storm a few years back down here? Flooded western Broward and Dade? Couple of those up north by the lake would help I guess and I will surmise that may have been the original poster's thoughts. We never got a winter soak rain this year...and we had a very warm winter for down here. Now SoFla is moving back into hit and miss showers and thunderstorms...not likely fodder for filling the lake or the glades...let alone a bucket on the back porch. The only good thing has been roofers have been able to finally catch up with all the dry weather as Wilma repairs continue.

Looking at water temps the Gulf and the Atlantic never cooled that far down either.... and with less water in the glades to act as a natural cooling....we can be talking higher than normal land mass temps with an even higher demand for irrigation. More importantly...history seems to indicate, IMHO, that these events can lead to an increase in Tropical systems intensity over the surrounding coastal waters and subsequent landfall points.

Gonna wd40 the shutter tracks.....

[hial2]

We're laughing,but the lake is down to 9.76 feet...

[GrimReaper]

Just catching up with the drought posts.....here in St Johns County the lake levels are at least 5 ft down. We are getting a lot of the smoke from the SE Georgia fire, depending on the wind directions. My prayer is that we don't see the fires that this area experienced in 1998!!! Ok....you guys are kidding about showering right????? I mean I could really get into that sharing showers thing.....but I might need it more than once a week...lol. I fully agree about watering lawns, at this point it really should be banned, until it rains, at least. Hang in there fellow Floridians, I am sure rain will be on the way.....hopefully soon!!!

[Downdraft]

Sometimes I think Florida can't buy a break. El Nino's generally mean wetter winters and severe weather for Florida. The severe weather certainly happened in my area but the wetter winter did not. La Nina's almost always bring continued or more drought to Florida. Where do you go when you pin your hopes on drought relief to a tropical system? We have even and odd day watering but the lawns are still lush in the upper scale neighborhoods while they turn brown in the middle class ones.

[Hurricanevideo]

The Lake Okeechobee levels are very severe now. Were going to need a few tropical systems to put a dent in this drought.
http://stormvideographer.com/blog/2007/ ... evels-now/ - May1
http://stormvideographer.com/blog/2007/ ... and-video/ - Apr 4

[Tampa Bay Hurricane]

South Florida and Lake Ockeechobee need steady prolonged rain badly!! But unfortunately I do not see that happening until June 1-5th or so with the start of the usual Florida Wet Rainy Season.

[JonathanBelles]

I heard Lake Ockeechobee would have to have 2 months of straight rain to fill back up. IF it was on here, I'm sorry. I forgot where I heard it.

[boca]

I wonder if theirs resources that we could use to tap salt water from the ocean and convert it to fresh water because if it doesn't rain soon we'll be taking showers once a week. This is from NWS Miami on the current drought situation.
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/productview.php?pil=ESFMFL

It would have to rain a prolonged period of time just to dent this drought and we know it won't rain, this is frustrating to me.