{"id":134137,"date":"2026-01-27T23:02:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T23:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/134137\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T23:02:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T23:02:18","slug":"drought-restrictions-ordered-for-bay-area-by-swfwmd-with-water-supplies-down-by-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/134137\/","title":{"rendered":"Drought restrictions ordered for Bay Area by SWFWMD with water supplies down by 25%"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Severe Severe water shortage declared across Tampa Bay area<\/a> <\/p>\n

The Southwest Florida Water Management District is putting local counties and homeowners on notice. It just issued a modified phase two water shortage due to the drought conditions across the Tampa Bay area. FOX 13’s Evan Axelbank reports.\u00a0<\/p>\n

TAMPA, Fla – The Southwest Florida Water Management District’s (SWFWMD) board instituted a Phase II drought restriction as water supplies are down by 25%.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What we know:<\/p>\n

SWFWMD officials are ordering lawns to be watered no more than once a week, for car washing to only be done on assigned lawn watering days, and for aesthetic fountains to only be on for a third of the day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We need a little bit of rain, that would be great,” said Michelle Hopkins of SWFWMD.<\/p>\n

But, lawns are considered the most important, because they can account for half of all the water a home uses.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

“We want to make sure you’ve got what you need for your own home,” said Hopkins. “But, we can cut back.”<\/p>\n

The backstory:<\/p>\n

With rain falling 13 inches short of a typical yearly total, SWFWMD says supplies are down by 25%.\u00a0<\/p>\n

READ: Most of Tampa Bay area enters severe drought to start 2026 from lack of rain<\/a><\/p>\n

Tampa Bay<\/a> Water, which supplies water to Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas Counties, says their reservoir is at nine billion gallons, well under their capacity of 15 billion.<\/p>\n

“We just ask people to use only the water that you need,” said Warren Hogg of Tampa Bay Water. “Please don’t waste it inside or outside the house.”<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Tampa Bay Water says this is similar to what happened two years ago, when a drought forced them to backfill supplies for some local municipalities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What’s next:<\/p>\n

And, the predictions aren’t rosy.<\/p>\n

“We’re still predicted to have low rainfall over the next few months,” said Hopkins. “We could hope to see an increase in that as we move into the rainy seasons.”<\/p>\n

The Source: Information in this article was gathered from SWFWMD, Tampa Bay Water and FOX 13’s Evan Axelbank.<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay<\/a>Environment<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Severe water shortage declared across Tampa Bay area The Southwest Florida Water Management District is putting local counties…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1563,47,115,135,1526,137,136,628],"class_list":{"0":"post-134137","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-fl","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-tampa","12":"tag-tampa-bay","13":"tag-tampa-headlines","14":"tag-tampa-news","15":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}