Recent rains quench drought for most of SWFL

FORT MYERS, Fla. The significant rain throughout the past couple weeks has mitigated the drought for most of Southwest Florida, the National Weather Service said.

The drought is “gone for pretty much all of Southwest Florida,” meteorologist Matt Devitt said.

The drought has plagued the state and parts of Southwest Florida since the fall of 2016, according to Devitt. These conditions then contributed to a devastating brush fire season.

“The extremely dry conditions made our fire season one of the worst and most significant in years here in Southwest Florida, and really across the state,” Devitt said.

Brush fires scorched more than 21,000 acres in the Big Cypress National Preserve and approximately 7,230 acres in the Picayune Strand State Forest.

Devitt said there has been “8.71 trillion gallons of rainfall in two weeks across the state,” and equated the amount rainfall over the past two weeks to “nearly nine Lake Okeechobee’s being dumped across the state.”