{"id":165873,"date":"2026-02-23T17:41:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T17:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/165873\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T17:41:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T17:41:07","slug":"critical-fire-conditions-build-throughout-central-florida-amid-growing-drought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/165873\/","title":{"rendered":"Critical fire conditions build throughout Central Florida amid growing drought"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORLANDO, Fla. \u2013 Several factors are contributing to the soon-to-be relentless drought conditions spreading through Florida.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, I\u2019m not tracking any hefty relief quite yet over the next two weeks. <\/p>\n

The next update comes Thursday, but as of last week extreme drought conditions have started building across even more of our viewing area (Copyright 2026 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n

The dry season kicked off for us back at the end of September and into October. La Nina in the tropical Pacific took command of much of the weather pattern not only here in the Florida peninsula, but across North America.<\/p>\n

Click here for more details<\/a> on what La Nina is doing to us, specifically. <\/p>\n

Southern Florida is beneath a critical fire danger today, with the rest of us highlighted for an elevated risk. This means our agriculture and wildlife are so dry, any fuel source will likely go up in a blaze immediately. (Copyright 2026 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n

Now, we\u2019re faced with extreme drought conditions that plague much of Central Florida and are growing more and more through our entire state. <\/p>\n

We’re blanketed beneath red flag warnings and active fire weather watches (Copyright 2026 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n

Right now, after our latest cold front<\/a> yanked a thick plume of dry air over us, we\u2019re at one of the most critical fire risks so far this season. We have to work together to avoid setting anything ablaze, not only for our own sake, but especially nature\u2019s sake. <\/p>\n

Next weekend, computer models are trying to highlight a pattern switch that could land us a couple DAYS of rain. Not only a single event, but actual rainfall that may ebb and flow between Friday and Sunday. <\/p>\n

Computer models are trying to latch on to the idea of a wetter more charged up weather pattern for next weekend. We’ll keep watching to see how this evolves (Copyright 2026 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll keep watching this closely, as computer models are doing their classic \u201cwindshield wiper\u201d effect as of this afternoon. <\/p>\n

I never enjoy delivering bad news, but from a long-term scale, I don\u2019t see rains returning consistently for us until maybe this time next month. <\/p>\n

La Nina is falling apart in the Pacific as we speak, which will help through spring and summer. But there\u2019s more to it than that.<\/p>\n

Despite our drought monitor highlighting extreme conditions, thankfully we’ve yet to hit that on our KBDI, which is a measure of the actual dryness of the ground and how quick something could set it on fire. (Copyright 2026 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.)How did we get here? <\/p>\n

A few other big-time contributors landed us in the pit of what feels like a tundra or a desert out here in what is normally a tropical oasis. <\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve watched me a couple of times, I love to mention \u201cit\u2019s always a give and take with Mother Nature.\u201d <\/p>\n

Last hurricane season, for the first time in a VERY LONG TIME – no one received any hurricanes. We certainly dodged some close calls here in Florida. <\/p>\n

But as a result of this, we were automatically poised to see a nasty dry season after the hurricanes faded and winter took over. <\/p>\n

Tropical systems actually do a fantastic job contributing to the overall water and moisture we keep here in Florida on a year-round basis. So while it\u2019s amazing news for us that we managed to avoid named storms, it\u2019s done some other sort of damage elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Daily Forecast<\/p>\n

The News 6 Weather team ensures you’re always on top of the day’s weather.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2013 Several factors are contributing to the soon-to-be relentless drought conditions spreading through Florida. Unfortunately, I\u2019m…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[525,855,14009,508,139,141,140],"class_list":["post-165873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-drought","tag-fire","tag-fire-danger","tag-forecast","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165873","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=165873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}