{"id":153380,"date":"2026-02-12T19:31:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T19:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/153380\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T19:31:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T19:31:15","slug":"central-florida-in-moderate-to-extreme-drought-conditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/153380\/","title":{"rendered":"Central Florida in moderate to extreme drought conditions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tThe latest drought index was released Thursday, showing that conditions have worsened across Central Florida over the last week.WESH 2&#8217;s First Warning Meteorologist Eric Burris says the numbers &#8220;continue to get rougher.&#8221;The Orlando area was abnormally dry last week, with conditions worsening, leaving the metro area in a moderate drought.Northern parts of Central Florida are under extreme drought watches.&#8221;Fire season this year looks to be rough,&#8221; Burris said.First Warning Weather Stay with WESH 2 online and on-air for the most accurate Central Florida weather forecast.RadarSevere Weather AlertsDownload the WESH 2 News app to get the most up-to-date weather alerts. The First Warning Weather team includes First Warning Chief Meteorologist Tony Mainolfi, Eric Burris, Marquise Meda and Cam Tran.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>The latest drought index was released Thursday, showing that conditions have worsened across Central Florida over the last week.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThis content is imported from Facebook.<br \/>\n\tYou may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.\n<\/p>\n<p>WESH 2&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wesh.com\/news-team\/b84a2751-86e2-4b70-8f05-12ecc06b0236\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">First Warning Meteorologist Eric Burris<\/a> says the numbers &#8220;continue to get rougher.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Orlando area was abnormally dry last week, with conditions worsening, leaving the metro area in a moderate drought.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\" aspect-ratio-original lazyload lazyload-in-view\" alt=\"drought monitor\" title=\"Orange County drought monitor\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/orange-county-drought-monitor-698e1b65c9b84.png\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Northern parts of Central Florida are under extreme drought watches.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Fire season this year looks to be rough,&#8221; Burris said.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThis content is imported from Twitter.<br \/>\n\tYou may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.\n<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">New drought index is in, and the drought numbers continue to get rougher-<\/p>\n<p>Take the Orlando metro- from abnormally dry last week- to a moderate drought now.<\/p>\n<p>More of N Florida including parts of Central Florida are also under an Extreme drought;<\/p>\n<p>Fire season this year looks to be\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/TRDDFiqwkt\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/TRDDFiqwkt<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Eric Burris (@EricBurrisWESH) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EricBurrisWESH\/status\/2021957869655003305?ref_src=twsrc^tfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">February 12, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>First Warning Weather <\/p>\n<p>Stay with WESH 2 online and on-air for the most accurate Central Florida weather forecast.<\/p>\n<p>Download the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wesh.com\/article\/wesh-2-app\/41431568\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">WESH 2 News app<\/a> to get the most up-to-date weather alerts. <\/p>\n<p>The First Warning Weather team includes First Warning Chief Meteorologist <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wesh.com\/news-team\/c15dac96-e8e1-4a2f-8a7c-b0d9c1d1ede8\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tony Mainolfi<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wesh.com\/news-team\/b84a2751-86e2-4b70-8f05-12ecc06b0236\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Eric Burris<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wesh.com\/news-team\/3dfc326b-9da6-4263-b1a0-92b081d5d993\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Marquise Meda<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wesh.com\/news-team\/97bcf79a-31d8-4f11-b87a-39b3812b68f6\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cam Tran<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The latest drought index was released Thursday, showing that conditions have worsened across Central Florida over the last&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[41107,147,73923,72894,5120,28,30,29,18774,73925,5126,58170,3618,73924,5122,918,26848,164],"class_list":["post-153380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-burris","tag-central-florida","tag-extreme-drought-condition","tag-fire-season","tag-first-warning-weather","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-last-week","tag-late-drought-index","tag-marquise-meda","tag-metro-area","tag-moderate-drought","tag-northern-part","tag-radarsevere-weather-alertsdownload","tag-wesh","tag-wesh-2-news-app","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153380","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=153380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}