{"id":252635,"date":"2026-04-30T16:19:06","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T16:19:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/252635\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T16:19:06","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T16:19:06","slug":"exceptional-drought-continues-to-spread-across-northeast-florida-southeast-georgia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/252635\/","title":{"rendered":"Exceptional drought continues to spread across Northeast Florida, Southeast Georgia"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 The last time Duval County was in a level 4, exceptional drought, was in 2012 when highs reached 96 degrees twice – May 3 and July 26. The rainfall total that year was 53.44 inches.<\/p>\n

So far in 2026, we\u2019ve had seven days where the high temperature has been at least 90 degrees, and total rainfall since Jan. 1, 2026, is less than 4 inches.<\/p>\n

These factors continue to exacerbate the ongoing drought, taking Duval County from extreme to exceptional in just a matter of one week.<\/p>\n

Drought monitor 4\/30\/26<\/p>\n

According to drought.gov<\/a>, 100% of people in Duval County are affected by drought, and in 132 years, this year ranks as the ninth driest January through March, which is 5.3 inches below normal.<\/p>\n

Bring on the rain<\/p>\n

Lack of rainfall is the biggest factor. <\/p>\n

From the National Weather Service in Jacksonville: the mid-April update states the ongoing drought at Jacksonville International Airport remains the all-time driest Aug. 25-April 15 (234 days) period on record, with only 12.04 inches of rainfall, which is 16.57 inches below the normal amount (28.61 inches) expected during this period. <\/p>\n

Rainfall records date back to 1871 in Jacksonville.<\/p>\n

Year to year numbers are below.<\/p>\n

Rain deficit<\/p>\n

The good news is that beneficial rainfall is in the forecast for the next 3-5 days, with 3-5 inches possible in some spots. <\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 The last time Duval County was in a level 4, exceptional drought, was in 2012…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[525,1039,28,116,118,117,221],"class_list":["post-252635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-drought","tag-duval-county","tag-florida","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252635","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=252635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}