Rainfall Totals Pile Up From Week Of Wet Stuff

    What a difference a week makes. A deluge of rainfall over the past week erased Lake County’s current rainfall deficit, filled area waterways, and left enough soaked soil behind that the risk of wildfire has decreased substantially.
   With rainfall totals rising over eight inches in some areas of the county, the rain was just what was needed to quell a fire danger that had been rising steadily in recent weeks. Significant rainfall fell throughout much of the north and central portions of the state in the last week, allowing the Florida Forest Service to gain control over several thousand acres of fires that had been plaguing the state, particularly in the Panhandle area.
   An electronic monitoring system at the Umatilla airport reported just under 3.5 inches of rain, substantially less than the gauge at area rainfall specialist John Bates, who runs a daily total throughout the year at his Pittman area home.
   “I had eight and three-tenths inches,” Bates said on Monday. “That’s unusual for March.”
   The Florida Forest Service’s tracking station in Paisley reported 6.10 inches from March 9 through 13. It was the first rain that station had recorded since February 13. In February, that station reported just 1.10 inches of total rainfall, after reporting just two inches in January.
   The trend continued on Monday night, when a line of strong storms moved through the area. Rain gauges in Umatilla reported as much as another three inches of rain overnight.
   It is not uncommon for the winter months to be dry in the area, but that condition can lead to increased wildfire risk as the dry conditions combine with warming temperatures later in the spring. This past week’s dousing will go a long way in keeping the fire risk lower longer, possibly even until the summer storm season’s expected arrival in early June.