\n\t\t\t\t\t\tAfter three decades living along a freshwater canal in southeast Cape Coral, Rose Barton says she\u2019s never seen water levels this low.”The first probably 20, 25 years \u2014 it stayed for most of the year,” Barton said from her home between Nicholas Parkway and Southeast 10th Terrace. “The last probably four or five years, it\u2019s like this more than not.”Today, her boat sits firmly on the bottom of the canal \u2014 nowhere near launchable.”We\u2019re only in December,” she said. “So yeah, there\u2019s no way that this boat\u2019s going anywhere for quite a while.”A visible water line marks where the canal level once reached. Barton says the shallowing has persisted for the last month or two \u2014 and shows no sign of improving.”Every season it\u2019s gotten worse, every year. Progressively worse,” she said.Gulf Coast News Chief Meteorologist Allyson Rae says the drop aligns with what\u2019s expected during Florida\u2019s dry season \u2014 especially during a year falling dramatically short on rainfall.”When we talk about how much rainfall we\u2019ve seen for the entire calendar year, we\u2019re about a foot and a half short,” Rae said. “This could go down as one of the driest years we\u2019ve had on record in this region.”Data from the South Florida Water Management District shows the Mid-Hawthorn Aquifer reached record lows in early 2025. While levels rebounded slightly by October, they remain below normal.”There are going to be a lot more factors going into the aquifers and the freshwater canals than just rainfall,” Rae said.Barton believes rapid development in Cape Coral is compounding the problem \u2014 and she hopes conditions change so she can once again enjoy her waterfront property.”We\u2019ve got another four months of dry season before we can even expect rain,” she said. “We\u2019re going to be living on a beach.”DOWNLOAD\u202fthe free\u202fGulf Coast News app\u202ffor your latest news and alerts on breaking news, weather, sports, entertainment, and more on your phone or tablet. And check out the Very Local Gulf Coast app to stream news, entertainment and original programming on your TV.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tCAPE CORAL, Fla. \u2014 \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
After three decades living along a freshwater canal in southeast Cape Coral, Rose Barton says she\u2019s never seen water levels this low.<\/p>\n
“The first probably 20, 25 years \u2014 it stayed for most of the year,” Barton said from her home between Nicholas Parkway and Southeast 10th Terrace. “The last probably four or five years, it\u2019s like this more than not.”<\/p>\n
Today, her boat sits firmly on the bottom of the canal \u2014 nowhere near launchable.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019re only in December,” she said. “So yeah, there\u2019s no way that this boat\u2019s going anywhere for quite a while.”<\/p>\n
A visible water line marks where the canal level once reached. Barton says the shallowing has persisted for the last month or two \u2014 and shows no sign of improving.<\/p>\n
“Every season it\u2019s gotten worse, every year. Progressively worse,” she said.<\/p>\n
Gulf Coast News Chief Meteorologist Allyson Rae says the drop aligns with what\u2019s expected during Florida\u2019s dry season \u2014 especially during a year falling dramatically short on rainfall.<\/p>\n
“When we talk about how much rainfall we\u2019ve seen for the entire calendar year, we\u2019re about a foot and a half short,” Rae said. “This could go down as one of the driest years we\u2019ve had on record in this region.”<\/p>\n
Data from the South Florida Water Management District shows the Mid-Hawthorn Aquifer reached record lows in early 2025. While levels rebounded slightly by October, they remain below normal.<\/p>\n
“There are going to be a lot more factors going into the aquifers and the freshwater canals than just rainfall,” Rae said.<\/p>\n
Barton believes rapid development in Cape Coral is compounding the problem \u2014 and she hopes conditions change so she can once again enjoy her waterfront property.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019ve got another four months of dry season before we can even expect rain,” she said. “We\u2019re going to be living on a beach.”<\/p>\n
DOWNLOAD\u202fthe free\u202fGulf Coast News app<\/a>\u202ffor your latest news and alerts on breaking news, weather, sports, entertainment, and more on your phone or tablet. And check out the Very Local Gulf Coast app<\/a> to stream news, entertainment and original programming on your TV.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After three decades living along a freshwater canal in southeast Cape Coral, Rose Barton says she\u2019s never seen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[1890,43713,209,211,210,3371,1467,104,43714,1179,213,34076,43715,5200,43716,18598,43712,164],"class_list":["post-77792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-boat","tag-canal-level","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-cape-coral-resident","tag-dry-season","tag-entertainment","tag-freshwater-canal","tag-gulf-coast-news-app","tag-late-news","tag-mid-hawthorn-aquifer","tag-rae","tag-rainfall","tag-rapid-development","tag-record","tag-rose-barton","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77792","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=77792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}