ORLANDO, Fla. – Several factors are contributing to the soon-to-be relentless drought conditions spreading through Florida.
Unfortunately, I’m not tracking any hefty relief quite yet over the next two weeks.
The dry season kicked off for us back at the end of September and into October. La Nina in the tropical Pacific took command of much of the weather pattern not only here in the Florida peninsula, but across North America.
Click here for more details on what La Nina is doing to us, specifically.
Now, we’re faced with extreme drought conditions that plague much of Central Florida and are growing more and more through our entire state.
Right now, after our latest cold front yanked a thick plume of dry air over us, we’re at one of the most critical fire risks so far this season. We have to work together to avoid setting anything ablaze, not only for our own sake, but especially nature’s sake.
Next weekend, computer models are trying to highlight a pattern switch that could land us a couple DAYS of rain. Not only a single event, but actual rainfall that may ebb and flow between Friday and Sunday.
I’ll keep watching this closely, as computer models are doing their classic “windshield wiper” effect as of this afternoon.
I never enjoy delivering bad news, but from a long-term scale, I don’t see rains returning consistently for us until maybe this time next month.
La Nina is falling apart in the Pacific as we speak, which will help through spring and summer. But there’s more to it than that.
How did we get here?
A few other big-time contributors landed us in the pit of what feels like a tundra or a desert out here in what is normally a tropical oasis.
If you’ve watched me a couple of times, I love to mention “it’s always a give and take with Mother Nature.”
Last hurricane season, for the first time in a VERY LONG TIME - no one received any hurricanes. We certainly dodged some close calls here in Florida.
But as a result of this, we were automatically poised to see a nasty dry season after the hurricanes faded and winter took over.
Tropical systems actually do a fantastic job contributing to the overall water and moisture we keep here in Florida on a year-round basis. So while it’s amazing news for us that we managed to avoid named storms, it’s done some other sort of damage elsewhere.