Drought — Inland Broward County, Florida

2007-06-01 to 2007-06-12 · Inland Broward County, Florida

Event narrative

Drought conditions persisted into June across much of South Florida as rainfall remained fairly sporadic, especially across interior and western sections of South Florida. D3 (extreme) drought conditions lasted around Lake Okeechobee until June 12th, with D2 (severe) drought conditions the remainder of the month. D2 drought conditions remained across Broward County until June 5th, eastern Palm Beach County until June 12th, and Collier County until June 19th when more consistent summer rains became more established across the area.

The level of Lake Okeechobee remained fairly steady, recovering only slightly from its low of 8.94 at the beginning of the month to 8.9 feet by June 29th. This slow change in the lake level resulted in a continuation of significant drought impacts for the general public, with water usage restrictions continuing across South Florida. Phase 3 restrictions (50 percent reduction in usage) were in place for Broward County and the Lake Okeechobee area, while the rest of South Florida was under Phase 2 restrictions (30 percent reduction). Wells across interior and western sections of South Florida were running at below 10 percent of normal, and underground reservoirs were also running below normal area-wide.

The extremely dry conditions along with gradually increasing thunderstorm activity resulted in several new wildfires breaking out interior sections of South Florida. In addition, large wildfires which started in May at the Big Cypress National Preserve in Collier County and the Paterson Fire in Hendry County continued to burn into the first half of June. Over 65,000 acres were consumed between those two fires alone.

Wider weather episode

A dry spring and early summer across parts of South Florida, combined with a prolonged period of below normal rainfall going back to early 2006, produced severe to extreme drought conditions across most of South Florida.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 37863. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.