Drought Back In South Florida

After a warmer than usual January, Palm Beach County enters February, normally its driest month of the year, having already crept back to drought conditions.

Now, with no steady rain expected, the county could soon be in a level-two drought. "The fear is that we're heading to a dry season like 2011, which reached never-before-seen drought conditions. Water restrictions were county wide, Fourth of July fireworks were almost canceled and brush fires were rampant," said Barry Baxter, drought expert with the National Weather Service in Miami.

Experts fear this is a harbinger of things to come. "Conditions are drier than normal and it gives an alert that a drought could be coming," Baxter said. "We're already running close to eight and a half inches (of rainfall) in the hole."

Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties are all in the lowest level of drought conditions known as D-0 on a scale that goes up to D-4, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. All three counties had a warmer-than-normal January. Miami had its fourth-warmest, with temperatures 5 degrees above its 30-year average, while Fort Lauderdale saw its fifth-warmest.

West Palm Beach had its 11th-warmest, 6.1 degrees above its 30-year average.

Palm Beach International Airport has received only 2.68 inches of rain since November 1. The average amount for that period is 11.26 inches.

Weather service and South Florida Water Management District forecasters predicted an El Ni????(R)????o season, which would mean wetter conditions. But now they are seeing conditions more like La Ni????(R)????a, which brings drier conditions and higher temperatures, similar to January's above-normal temperatures.