The nation’s top agencies in charge of predicting the future of the year-long drought in South Florida described it with one word: Persistence.
NOAA, the USDA, and the National Drought Mitigation Center, which provide the forecasts to Drought.gov, mentioned the Fort Myers region twice this week.
Once to extend the length of the current year-long drought in Southwest Florida by at least another month.
The second time to increase its severity from severe to extreme.
In other words, the drought parching the soil region-wide is worsening and will last longer.
Wildfires are more likely, their growth faster and larger, there may be more of them, and the blazes could be harder to put out. Lake levels will continue to fall. Water shortages will get worse. Crops will wilt.
Predicting when a drought will start, how bad it will get, and when it will end has confounded scientists for generations.
That’s because drought sneaks in.
Unlike a hurricane, flood, or freeze, drought has no single trigger, no clear start date, no dramatic moment of arrival.
And once it has a grip on a region, all anyone can do is wait for a solid stretch of beating rain. Two or three times over.
Until then, more than 18 million Floridians are living in areas of drought – a figure that will grow as long as the parched ground remains. For there can't be a year's worth of steady, average rainfall and a drought in the same area.
That would be like snow and 90 degrees out.
More than just a dearth of rainfall makes a drought a drought, but a lack of showers does cause water levels to drop above ground and below.
That's left Central and South Florida under a mix of mandatory and voluntary irrigation and water-use restrictions.
The Southwest Florida Water Management District, which covers an eclectic area surrounding Tampa Bay, declared a "Modified Phase II 'Severe' Water Shortage" in January.
Lawn watering is down to one day a week in the district, between midnight to 8 a.m. or — not and — 6 p.m. to midnight.
Which day residents in the district can water depends on the last number in their addresses: 0 or 1 water on a Monday, 2 or 3 Tuesday, 4 or 5 Wednesday, 6 or 7 Thursday, and 8 or 9 Friday.
For example, the owners of a home at 1117 Southside Place can water only on Thursday, either between midnight and 8 a.m. or 6 p.m. and midnight.
Across the street at 1118 Southside Way, the owners can only irrigate on Friday and only during one of the two time slots.
The SWFWMD covers all of Sarasota, Manatee, Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Polk, Hernando, Citrus, DeSoto, Hardee, Sumter, and parts of Charlotte and Lake counties.
The South Florida Water Management District, which is also oddly shaped and runs from South Florida north through the middle of the state into the Orlando area, has issued a "Water Shortage Warning."
South Florida hasn't gone mandatory — but the ask is urgent: do not waste any water.
The SFWMD in Collier, Lee, Glades, Highlands, Miami-Dade, Monroe, and parts of Charlotte County.is watching declining groundwater levels in the Lower Tamiami Aquifer. The district's voluntary warning urges residents to follow their local irrigation ordinances — typically allowing watering two to three days per week.
The exception is a small pocket of northeastern Cape Coral, where private-well users are under a mandatory order that bans lawn irrigation to protect the stressed Mid-Hawthorn Aquifer.
Environmental reporting for WGCU is funded in part by VoLo Foundation, a nonprofit with a mission to accelerate change and global impact by supporting science-based climate solutions, enhancing education, and improving health.
Sign up for WGCU's monthly environmental newsletter, the Green Flash, today.
WGCU is your trusted source for news and information in Southwest Florida. We are a nonprofit public service, and your support is more critical than ever. Keep public media strong and donate now. Thank you.
