Rain records continue to fall in the Fort Myers area as the tropical plume that has hovered over Florida for days continues to batter the Sunshine State.
Several inches of rain fell in Lee County, and both Fort Myers and Cape Coral received flood warnings from the National Weather Service (NWS).
“At Page Field (airport), we had 1.29 inches of rain, which was a record,” said Christianne Pearce, an NWS meteorologist in Ruskin, which covers the Fort Myers-Lee County area. “The record for that was 3.2 inches and that was set in 1983.”
According to NWS data, the average precipitation on June 11 in Page Field is 0.32 inches.
The rain comes from a plume of tropical moisture that has been hanging over the state for days.
It is expected to eventually make its way into the Atlantic Ocean and possibly become a tropical storm.
“The whole system is moving northeast and it’s just moving slowly,” Pearce said. “Eventually it will move over Florida and the National Hurricane Center is already monitoring it because it has quite a bit of sap in it. But right now it’s just a big rain shower.”
Pearce said even areas of tropical humidity can produce heavy rains like this.
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She pointed out that we don’t need a named storm to see days of heavy rain and localized flooding.
“These tropical systems can dump a lot of rain, especially if they are slow,” Pearce said. “We issued a flood advisory for parts of Fort Myers on Wednesday because it was just steady rain.”
It will continue to rain next week
This plume is expected to pass through the area this weekend, and Pearce said the daily pattern should change to normal afternoon thunderstorms and showers.
“Hopefully we’ll be moving more towards our normal rainy season where you’ll get rain showers in the morning or afternoon depending on the flow,” Pearce said. “You know it’s going to be hot and humid along the way. That’s our typical summer pattern, not the endless rain we’ve seen in recent days.”
The rain has held back the daytime highs
Pearce said one bright side of the daily rain was the consistent cloud cover, which had resulted in daily maximum temperatures being about 10 degrees below average.
“The highs were in the 80s instead of the 90s, with all this rain and cloudiness,” Pearce said. “It definitely helped with that.”
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Southwest Florida has also experienced drought, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
NOAA’s next drought index will be released Thursday.
“If they get these numbers in by then, it should have an impact,” Pearce said. “It won’t completely solve the drought, but it should certainly improve it.”
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Steady rainfall expected to continue in Southwest Florida as plume drifts east
