CEO of Florida Power & Light Eric Silagy answers six questions about hurricane season. Fort Myers News-Press
The rainy season exploded in Fort Myers Wednesday with nearly 5 inches of precipitation falling at Page Field Airport.
That's a record for any June 2 in Fort Myers, easily beating out the previous high of 3.65 inches that fell on the same day in 1922. But not all areas of Southwest Florida were wet.
"We had lots of showers develop yesterday all day," said Keily Delerme, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Ruskin, which covers all of Southwest Florida but Collier County. "That’s definitely a lot of rain in one day."
Most areas south of Lake Okeechobee, including almost all of Collier, are in a moderate drought, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Lee and other coastal counties in Southwest Florida are considered to be abnormally dry by the center, which released its latest drought index report on Thursday.
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Inland areas like Clewiston and Immokalee are dry as well.
"It's been real spotty," said Gene McAvoy, with the University of Florida's IFAS network. "If you happen to be under the clouds you might get an inch or an inch-and-a-half. It looks like the rainy season is starting but we haven't had really good soaking rains."
The official tally for Fort Myers for Wednesday was 4.77 inches, Delerme said.
But there was no rain recorded in Naples, according to NWS meteorologist Paxton Fell, who works in the service's Miami office.
"There could have been rain in surrounding areas but at the Naples Airport we received zero inches," Fell said.
Southwest Florida to see rain every day second week of June
The official rainy season runs from May 15 through Oct. 15, but the day on which the daily rains starts varies from year to year.
Rain is in the forecast for Southwest Florida every day for the next week, with chances varying between 20% and 60%.
About the only good news about the recent dry spell is it has allowed Lake Okeechobee waters to drop to 12.8 feet above sea level, according to the South Florida Water Management District.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers controls lake levels and has tried to get them to 12.5 feet or lower at the beginning of most rainy seasons, with 15.5 feet being the general target for the start of the dry season.
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Bonita Springs is about halfway between Fort Myers and Naples geographically, and coastal rains there started Monday.
"We have had some rain lately, but I don’t think we’ve gotten 5 inches," said Katie Moses, manager of Lovers Key State Park in Bonita Springs. "But it’s still pretty dry out here. The good thing about Florida plants is they can survive dry conditions, but we need the rain."
Moses said the park received rain each afternoon this week.
Lee, Sarasota counties driest in Florida as wildfires continue burning
Wildfires typically rage at this time of year as the landscape is still dry while the risk of lightning-caused fires increases.
Lee and Sarasota counties are the driest in the state, according to the Keetch-Byram Drought Index, a tool used by the Florida Forestry Service to gauge wildfire risks.
"The wildfires we’ve had recently are doing better," said Melinda Avni, wildlife mitigation specialist for the Caloosahatchee Forestry Center. "They’re contained and smoking in the interior."
By the way: Lee commission orders fire ban as drought creates risk of brush fires
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While 5 inches of rain is impressive on any one day, Avni said it would take more than a consistent day of rainfall to wipe out wildfire chances.
"The couple of days of rain we've had (in rural inland areas) has helped but we need consistent rain for several days for it to improve our resistance to wildfire," she said. "We don’t want to go right from drought to flooding. It takes a while for the water that hits the soil to work its way into the soil. It usually takes two or three weeks until that condition improves."
Just where it rains across the state on any given day during the rainy season is largely determined by where the sea breeze forms.
"It’s a tricky thing to forecast because the sea breeze is hard to forecast and the rain chances are highly dependent upon where that sets up," Fell explained. "If it sets up along the Atlantic you might have more of a west coast dominated area of rain because the Atlantic is a stronger breeze than the Gulf of Mexico."
Meteorologists are expecting the summer rainy season to be a little stronger than usual.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, is calling for above-average rains between now and August, according to its latest report.
Connect with this reporter: @ChadEugene on Twitter.
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The Link LonkJune 04, 2021 at 02:54AM
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Fort Myers breaks June 2 record for rainfall Wednesday, Bonita gets some rain, Naples still dry - News-Press
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