Dry, warm conditions expected through mid-May, start of next summer rainy season

Record rains fell Monday in the Fort Myers area, which helped because the city was about an inch-and-a-half low on rain for the month.

Southwest Florida has reached the midway point in the dry season, which runs from October through May. And like its namesake, this season has been dry, with Fort Myers being almost 2 inches behind on rain for the calendar year.

"The 1.56 inches that fell Monday in Fort Myers broke the record of 1.33 inches of rain that fell on that same date in 1992," said Rodney Wynn, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Ruskin. "That was not the highest for a single day in February but the highest for that date."

Otherwise, the Fort Myers area saw 0.14 inches of rain this month, Wynn said.

The U.S. Drought Monitor shows Southwest Florida as being abnormally dry in some areas and in a moderate drought in others.

Collier County is among the driest counties in the state, according to the Florida Forestry Service's Keetch Byram Drought Index.

The county scored between 500 and 549 on a scale that ranges from 0 for super wet conditions to 800 for crispy times.

Lee is a little wetter, with a drought value of 450 to 499.

March, April and May tend to the be some of the more dangerous months when it comes to wildfires, although the right conditions can allow land managers to conduct much-needed prescribed burns.

Florida's ecology evolved with fire as a constant threat, with much of the state burning for months at a time, historic records show.

This spring is expected to be a continuation of the warm, dry conditions that been near-constant this dry season.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, is calling for below-average rainfall and above-average temperatures between now and the start of the rainy season on May 15.

May 15 is the historical average day for the start of the summer rainy patterns.

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"For the next three months we're looking at above-average temperatures," Wynn said. "We may see one or two more rounds of cooler weather, but most of the weather with lows in the 40s is probably over with."

Wynn said rain will be scarce the next few weeks, with the next strong possibility of precipitation coming Wednesday.

"The next rain will be Wednesday next week so we're looking good, and we're getting into that transition season," Wynn said. "We'll have a couple of weak fronts move through this week and then again Sunday, but we won't see much in the way of rain or temperature deviation."