ORLANDO, Fla. – During this last episode of extensively cold temps, we had a few features develop out there that weren’t given a tremendous amount of attention.
Brush fires came up in a couple areas over this past weekend, all thanks to the very strong winds and dry conditions brought down by our arctic outbreak.
While the fires have been contained and snuffed altogether, one critical detail remains. Before I get to that I want you to take a look at your lawn and garden. How does you grass look? How do the trees nearby look?
If you’re in my situation, it’s beginning to look a lot like Tucson, Arizona. Things are continuing to dry out because we are WELL below the average of where we should be in terms of total rains here in Central Florida.
As of the most recent drought update, a few of our own viewing counties are now seeing extreme drought conditions as a result of the scarcity of rain.
With each of these upcoming frontal events, winds tend to always get cranking immediately after it comes across us. Any little spark or whisper of an ember is going to ignite a brush fire in a moments notice.
We still have a good stretch of time before spring settles in and we perhaps start to see more recurring periods of forecasted rainfall for the Florida peninsula. But in the meantime, the only chance we’re tracking is through the night on Wednesday into Thursday morning.
As that wraps up, accumulation is not going to be anything spectacular. In fact, I’d bet a lot of you won’t even notice the rain at all.
Our drought monitor updates every Thursday, and I’m anxious to see what it unveils as we continue through the month of February. If you rewind back a couple months, I did forecast drought and fire risks becoming a more talked on headline as we got deeper into the winter.