D, it has been very dry and hot here. I can only walk in the morning hours and right after that I water the garden and come inside. I saw on the news that yesterday was the biggest use of AC in something like 90 years. At least we have solar panels in our house, water bill is high! even that I collect rain to water the pots.

Silvia

Silvia, we have cheap water here, but the most expensive electric in FL. It used to be cheap, but Gainesville Regional Utilities got into a bad deal with some biomass company and now we're paying for it. If they would let me, I'd put a solar panel in the courtyard.

When I was in SW FL, my water bill was never less than $50 a month (the minimum where I lived) and usually ran from $70 to $80. Up here, with sewage, it's about half that, but the electric makes up for it. I figured in this tiny little apartment, I would never have a $100 utility bill (water and electric) but it's been over $100 the last three months. Still, it's better than that horrible little house I was living in with the $250 utility bills, and I don't pay $25 a month for garbage here.

My entire garden (aside from the bananas and sweet potatoes) seems to have gone on strike, refusing to grow in this heat. I never thought I would be praying for winter, but here I am.

Florida, you are not alone here! I have attached a link to the the National Drought Monitor. Curiously, I do not see much of Florida in dry according to the map, but it is updated every Thursday. Especially bad now in Long Island, Upstate NY, and into New England (especially Ma.) I am in NJ/Zone 7ish and the last two summers have been unusually arid. We used to get many more pop up thunderstorms this time of year. Now, the heat and humidity but rain is very sporadic, and sometimes now when it does rain, well, you betta get to HIGH GROUND. We have just had over a week in the mid to upper 90's with dew points in the 70's. I used to be able to plop my tomatoes in the ground and rely on natural rain. That seems like ancient history now. I have a large collection of tropicals (palms, cycads, Citrus,...lots, and I also see a slowdown in growth, maybe the heat, maybe the lack of natural rainfall (I believe that tap water seems to result in poorer growth for whatever reason.)

I see according to the Drought Monitor that there is also area in and around north Georgia that is also quite bad, and well, then there is Cali!

http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

We just had a 30-minute deluge. The sky opened and the rain came down so hard and fast that cars pulled over to the side of the road and the ducks in our pond put on raincoats.

Here in north Broward county (between west palm and Lauderdale) we got 3/4" to 1" just a bit ago. I had to bail out my new mini goldfish pond.

I have a well so my water bill is relatively steady.

Even if there were no payback I would have a well.

Yup, we're getting daily downpours in Tampa too. But it is incredibly hot so the rain is just enough to keep most things from frying. Luckily when I do have to water, my sprinkler can pull from the pond.

We've had a total of six or seven minutes of rain here since the beginning of June.

I'm getting no rain in palm bay.the woods near by are dry even the weeds r dyeing and my grass is close.

Places near the coast will usually get more rain, but even some of those in S. Florida have been dry this year. The worst part is the heat. I can water well in the morning and by noon, everything is wilting. All I can do right now is keep things alive. Not much is really growing - except the sweet potatoes, cayennes and that 10-foot pigeon pea. They love the heat.

I'm right on the ocean, on Hutchinson Island. It rains way inland here, like Palm City, and I've seen plenty of showers right offshore, but it never rains here this summer.

Every day I see the clouds gather inland in the west, but nothing here on the Treasure Coast. We had one rain storm about 2 weeks ago, the first in many weeks, and not a drop since. I have taken to going out in the wee hours to water everything in the hope that it will do some good before the sun comes up and dries everything. So un-summery.

Well, during normal summers, we're complaining because it won't STOP raining. Why can we never hit a happy medium?

I have to admit that I'm not totally unhappy about the long dry spell here. It rained so much all winter that even in June the water table was about where it usually is at the end of the rainy season, and even a brief shower was causing some road flooding. If we had had a hurricane with the water already that high we would have been in big trouble, so I'm kind of glad to see it back down before the tropics really start heating up.

Here in Sarasota, it hasn't stopped raining for over a month. Its like living in a rain forest. Everything is constantly wet, mushrooms are popping up all over the place along with lots of fungal problems.

Every single day! Downpours, lightening, thunderstorms. Power has gone out so many times. Really getting tired of it!

Jane

@jane_ny Lived in South Sarasota Co. for 15 years, so I know just what you're talking about. The first year I moved into my house, we had a La Nina winter, and the swale behind my house overflowed into the street. People were getting flooded out everywhere. Then the next 3 years, we had a drought and nearly everything died. Wish you could send some of that rain up here to Gainesville.

I've lived here for over 30 years, and every summer it rained almost every day—just a shower that sometimes was so brief that when it stopped one could see the steam rising from the pavement, other times long, noisy and serious downpours. But that was summer in FL. The last few years it rains less and less on the east coast. I'm guessing offshore winds blow the storms to the west, but it's said development is also part of the problem.

Development creates heat, which dries out the wet air coming from the tropics.

Well, we got almost an inch of rain yesterday, but in stops and starts. Everything is wilted, but I'm going to wait until tomorrow to water anyway. They need to learn to tough it out.

It poured buckets here yesterday and just started pouring again today. Yay I dont have 2 water anything :)

I wouldn't say that it was cancelled, just very, very spotty. Almost every day when I look westward during the afternoon (in the direction of Inverness) I see rain clouds. they just rarely seem to make it our way. While we have gotten some rain from the west, most of ours has come from the south or southeast. A few days ago I watch a curtain of rain approach the house from directly east. With the exception of the "strange" directions, living in Florida this summer reminds me of what it was like to live in South Carolina.

We got a little bit of rain yesterday and a little bit today but officialy no rain for 31 days.I need a day of good rain bad.

Poured all day yesterday and today. High winds, and rain, rain.

My lawn is sprouting mushrooms and moss, fungal and wet, wet is everywhere. Doesn't cool anything down, feels like there's no air outside.

Horrible!

Jane

We're getting plenty now. It goes in waves. I think the position of the high pressure areas have been affecting where and when the rain is. I remember as a kid the rain started on the last day of school and it rained every day all summer. Then somewhere in the 80's or 90's (it's all a blur to me now) we had such dry summers all my azaleas died and it lasted several years.

Here's a story from the Orlando Sentinel: Orlando: Scorched by hottest month ever. In short, the Orlando area got about half the rain we normally get and it was terribly hot. We are now getting some rain, but still not nearly what we usually get. When I look at the radar it seems that south Florida keeps getting rain. It just doesn't get here for some reason.

I have the sprinklers going today. I haven't had to do that in early August for years.

Hmm, I guess it depends on where you are. I have a friend in Ocoee who keeps complaining that it rains all the time this summer.

Yup. Lots of rain by UCF this week

They should be releasing masses of dragonflies and their larvae instead. They can probably go places that the poisons cant and will actively seek out and eat up the mosquitoes. The dragonflies are pretty much harmless to people.

On a lake here so we don't pay for water for irrigation. My neighbor just scooped up a Muscovy duck out of the lake who was nearly immobilized. Could only move her head. She took it to the wildlife hospital and they said that with the high temperatures the bacterial count in the lake is super high. Botulism basically paralyzes them. So sad. We need rain and cooler temps quick.

That's an issue that all small/shallow lakes have. When I was in Michigan, there were many kettle lakes (lakes created by ice blocks falling from glaciers) that would be unsafe to swim in by July due to high water temperatures. Unfortunately, ducks and other critters don't know the difference between a man-made retention pond or decorative lake and an actual lake which tends to be fed by some other water source, thus keeping the water fresher and cleaner.

Soooo, is everyone getting rain now??

Jane

Haha, it's been raining Every.Day. here in St Petersburg!

I now can say that I have an infinity edge pool :)

It rained daily here for a few days, a nice, slow, easy rain that saturated everything. Now it's back to hot and dry. I don't know which state I live in anymore; FL or AZ.

Yay, wonderful rain!

It looked like it was soaking the garden, but I was tricked. Even after getting rain every day for a week, when I tried to plant some three gallon trees the soil still looked like a desert under the mulch.

Good thing I have so many rain barrels and now they are all overflowing. I can pour rainwater on the plants, just like I've been doing all summer.

Come on, Rain! Don't stop yet!

We're back to afternoon/evening showers, but not enough to fill the pond. I want the pond! I wish we had a "real" pond, but then the whole area would flood when it rains heavily, so have to wait for the summer pond to fill. Summer is almost over, though. Sad for the ducks. Don't see a lot of babies at all this year, because no water.

The rain has stopped in palm bay.none all week just hot and dry