ORLANDO, Fla. – Starting late on Monday, Central Florida has been socked in with cloud cover and lots of steady, consistent rainfall.
This was all brought on by a hefty Gulf winter storm that formed to our west and has now since pushed across the state to its entirety.
The northern periphery of Florida has received historic snowfall totals, with some areas near Pensacola receiving 8-10 inches!
Now, we didn’t rack up nearly that much in total rainfall for us in the Florida peninsula. But this wintry system sure broke all the La Niña rules and gave us a nice dent in the latest drought conditions set up due to a lack of real good rain for many.
Right away, the crown goes to Osceola County; Kissimmee saw a total of approximately 3.5 inches of rain since this event began through Wednesday morning. Surrounding areas in northern Osceola County picked up around 2 inches on average, which was the generalized amount for a lot of us after all has come to a close.
Coming in as runner up, part of The Villages in Marion County received just under 3 inches of rainfall as of Wednesday morning. Along the southernmost border of Marion County, an observation reported a total of 2.8 inches of rain having accumulated over this 48-hour window.
Surprisingly, the heart of Central Florida, closest to the Orlando metro area and the attractions, received the lowest amounts of rainfall since the winter storm picked up steam and pushed across. Downtown Orlando only saw 1.5 inches of rain, with Apopka barely squeaking into the 1-inch margin.
Brevard and Volusia counties both saw an average of 2 inches, with some localized areas trying to reach the amounts accumulated up in The Villages. Flagler and Putnam counties rounded out with an even 2 inches roughly for many especially with our overnight rains that picked up intensity before the sun rose Wednesday.
Lake County looks to have received the least amount of rain but still managed to total up a beneficial 1 inch per city on average. The highest total reported was in Lady Lake, where we topped out around 1.3 inches.
So, looking at our latest drought monitor below, Florida is still experiencing a high level of dryness.
But several counties have now escaped the moderate or greater drought conditions originally plastered all over the chart. We’re still seeing a drought over the northern peninsula, likely due to the fluctuations we saw the last couple days in our overall rain field along the leading edge of our low pressure. Combine that with dry, cold conditions and you just won’t get very much rainfall.
We’ll be on the look out for our next solid shot at rain across Florida. But after all the energy consumed by the atmosphere in providing us with such a mixed bag of wintry and storm impacts, it looks like Mother Nature is taking a quick vacation. At least for the time being.
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