Maps: 10 Inches of Rain + More Vs. Florida Drought

Update: According to William Schmitz, Service Climatologist/Meteorologist with the NOAA Southeast Regional Climate Center, Orlando's total of 3.39" of rain on May 18th is the highest daily precipitation in May in recorded history (since 1850).

This week's semi-tropical system is continuing to bring heavy rain to parts of Florida that had already received heavy rain from the frontal passage over the weekend.* In the past 48 hours alone, some areas have counted more than 10 inches of rain!

But here's the interesting thing - prior to last week, Florida was in a severe drought. In fact if you compare the last 7 day rainfall map...

To the 30-day rainfall map...

Florida looks much the same, because they got next to no rain in April. Below is a graphic we have drawn showing the paltry amounts between April 1 and May 10:

Depending on who you ask, more than 6 inches, and locally up to a foot of rain could fall in the eastern part of the state through mid-week. Here's our official forecast map:

But that still won't reverse the long-term drought in the state; as you can see from the map below showing the rainfall deficit since October, some places are missing more than 16 inches of rain!

Past precip maps on this page provided by the NWS Gauge-Adjusted Doppler-Precip Site and the NWS Hourly Gauge-Adjusted Doppler Precip Site.

Below is a model guess on total rainfall from last night's 4-KM WRF:

*The rain was locally heavy on Friday - blog reader Thomas Giella sends in this report for perspective: