Although it won\u2019t be the sort of precipitation that will reverse the drought conditions currently plaguing Florida, some rain is forecast this weekend.<\/p>\n
According to meteorologist Nicole Carlisle of the National Weather Service\u2019s Ruskin office, a low pressure system is expected to move across the state Saturday afternoon and into Sunday, bringing some measure of sweet relief to the entire Tampa Bay area.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe rain chances are pretty high,\u201d Carlisle said. \u201cWe\u2019re looking at 70 percent or so. The rainfall amounts are a little bit up in the air still. Probably at least an inch. I don\u2019t that\u2019s really going to do too much for the drought, but it will be nice for our plants and our grass.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rainy respite, the meteorologist stressed, is \u201cjust a frontal boundary, and not our rainy season or anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Temperatures on Monday will be normal, in the low 80s, for this time of year. \u201cWe\u2019ve actually been a few degrees above normal,\u201d Carlisle explained, \u201cso we\u2019re really going to \u2018cool down,\u2019 quote unquote.\u201d<\/p>\n
The U.S. Drought Monitor<\/a> list Florida\u2019s west coast, from Cystal River south to Naples, as under D3 (Extreme Drought) conditions. Impacts of a D3 include: Fire danger is extreme, fire restrictions increase; Fish kills occur, toxic algae blooms appear; Ground water declines, Lake Okeechobee is extremely low; Nesting bird populations grow with increased nesting area, mosquitoes increase; Saltwater species replace freshwater species; sea intrusion.<\/p>\n Pinellas County remains under severe watering restrictions. Southwest Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD) has issued a Modified Phase III \u201cExtreme\u201d Water Shortage Order, emphasizing the need for customers throughout Pinellas County and surrounding areas to take immediate action to conserve water<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Although it won\u2019t be the sort of precipitation that will reverse the drought conditions currently plaguing Florida, some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-252755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252755","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=252755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}