Will Canada’s chilly pattern help bust Florida’s exceptional drought?
The Sunshine State is in desperate need of meaningful rain as an extreme to exceptional drought grows with each passing week
Florida’s ever-worsening drought is taxing the state to its limits. Is there finally some relief in sight heading into the month of May?
A stagnant pattern expected to build across North America may allow unsettled conditions to finally reach the Sunshine State in the weeks ahead.
But it may take a tropical storm or hurricane this summer to put a dent in the region’s extreme rainfall deficits.
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Worst drought in a quarter of a century
Florida is enduring its worst drought since the spring of 2001.
According to the April 28 update of the United States Drought Monitor, nearly one-quarter of the state is mired in exceptional drought, which is the highest of the five categories. Drought conditions covered 98.66 per cent of Florida to end April, covering just shy of 18 million people.
The region has endured a persistent lack of rainfall since last autumn. Tallahassee missed out on more than half a metre of rain between the beginning of September and end of April. Only the southeast corner of the state, including Miami, has been spared.
Many municipalities have instituted burn bans and water restrictions to deal with the absence of meaningful precipitation.
May could offer some relief, but certainly not enough
Anyone who’s been to Florida knows that the region is warm and humid all year long. Lack of moisture certainly isn’t the driving force behind this drought.
Relentless ridges of high pressure over the southeastern United States have acted like a lid on the atmosphere, stifling the instability and triggers needed to spur development of showers and thunderstorms.
The pattern heading into May looks much different, with the southeastern ridge breaking down at the hands of the same trough expected to keep Eastern Canada cooler than normal in the weeks ahead.
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A jet stream that’s shunted south may offer renewed opportunities for disturbances to move across the southeast, providing the region some much-needed relief.
Florida’s iconic daily thunderstorm activity will also resume closer to the summer months, helping to provide additional relief from the recent parching.
The long-term solution, as it turns out, may lurk offshore. Tropical cyclones are known drought-busters across the southern United States. It may take a landfalling tropical storm or hurricane to put a significant dent in Florida’s widespread drought.
Header image created using graphics and imagery from Canva and NOAA.