The Day Your Lawn Was Saved

It is very hard to imagine just one day’s worth of rainfall saved South Florida from a year’s worth of weather calamities, but looking back as of today…

It’s absolutely true.

Here’s the scenario:  Thanks to a plethora of tropical storms hitting Florida and thanks to a report outlining the problems with Lake Okeechobee’s dike system, water managers lowered the lake level in the name of safety.

A different name emerged:  Drought.

Turns out, we needed that water… as more tropical storms (and their deluges of rain) didn’t come in the summers of 2006 & 2007.  Lake Okeechobee fell to dangerously low levels.  Even though the lake isn’t Broward & Miami-Dade’s primary source of water, the lake level is the barometer that water managers use to impose watering restrictions.

So put simply:  When lake levels go down, so does the quality of your yard.

Lake Okeechobee was dangerously low going into Hurricane Season 2008, and strict watering restrictions for farmers, golf courses, industry, and homeowners were put into effect.  Quietly, folks in the weather industry were saying that the only thing that could get us out of that drought was some kind of tropical system (not that anyone was hoping for that).

Guess what:  That’s exactly what happened.

August 19, 2008:  That’s when Tropical Storm Fay made landfall in mainland South Florida.  Wind turned out not to be too big of an issue. 

But man did it RAIN.  Not measured in inches… but in feet.  The Daytona area received more than two feet of rain.  Much of Central Florida got more than a foot.  Lake Okeechobee, and the areas that help feed the lake its’ water, got on average 18″ of rain.

As a result, the Lake rose quicker in one week than it ever did in its’ history.  In just one day, our drought was gone.

Looking back now, that one day saved us.  Rainfall the past three months is at about 10 percent of normal.  That’s a severe short-term deficit, and it’s enough to put the current lake level 1.5 feet below the 40-year average.

Thankfully we just have to imagine this, but think how much a deficit we would be in right now if Fay didn’t raise the Lake six feet.  We lost at least two of those feet when water managers let some of it flow away, but simple math says the current lake level of 13 feet might be more like 8 or 9 feet without Fay.

Last year, in a huge drought, it was 10.14 feet.

Why should we care?  Let me list the reasons.  Mandatory water restrictions.  Golf courses (a big part of our economy) nearly unusable.  Landscaping industry decimated.  Lawns and plants dead.  A spring fire season much worse than normal.  Restrictions on Everglades recreational use.  Salinity increases in our aquifer.  Fishing impacts.

Lots of stuff — and none of it good.

So let’s be thankful (for the most part) for Tropical Storm Fay — six months later, it is proving to be a rainmaker “good to the last drop”.