The drought continues to expand across our area. With little or no rain in the forecast through the end of the week. It remains the all-time driest Aug. 25 through April 15 period on record.
Jacksonville International has only picked up 12.04 inches of rainfall, which is 16.57 inches below the normal amount (28.61 inches) during this period.
Rainfall records date back to 1871 in Jacksonville.
The dry weather, along with the wind and low humidity, has prompted Fire Weather Alerts across our area over the past few days and also allowed numerous fires to spread out of control.
Just this morning, numerous fires were still burning across the area.
Visible satellite from this morning showed several plumes of smoke pushing across our area from the active fires in Georgia and Florida.
Our area is expected to get some rain over the next week, but it looks like it won’t be enough to put a large dent in the drought.
In fact, some spots need over 20 inches of rain to get out of the drought.
Sunday looks like the best day to see showers and storms, thanks to an approaching front.
Activity will be isolated, but we will take anything that we can get.
The good news is that the dry pattern may change as we head into the end of April. Our area is highlighted in seeing a higher probability of above normal rainfall.