Good morning! River levels are still rising this morning along the St. John's River at Geneva; as of early this morning, the level was at 6.7 feet near SR-46 at Lake Harney. Flood stage is 8.5 feet and the river is forecast to crest at 8.6 feet on Sunday. Flood will be especially problematic along SR-46 near Lake Harney, where low lying areas begin flooding when the river reaches 8 feet. Since the record October rains essentially ended early Monday morning, you might be wondering: why is the river still rising?

In a blog post on Monday, I vaguely touched on this when addressing whether the heavy rain would help ease our long-term drought or put the groundwater supply in a much better position headed into the heart of the dry season. Unfortunately, with so much rain falling in such a short amount of time, the ground is not able to absorb a lot of it. As a result, the water runs off into creeks and streams, raising water levels on those bodies of water and creating flooding problems. That's why the river level continues to rise on the St. John's even though the significant rain ended long ago. Eventually, though, this run off process will stop (by the end of the weekend after we get several days of dry weather under our belts) and the river level will start to return to normal. In the meantime, though, flooding will be an issue in eastern parts of Seminole County where flooding warnings continue for the forseeable future!

Speaking of the future: it's a less humid one for central Florida! Our rain chances will be in the 10-20% range through Friday morning, when a cold front arrives. That front will not bring much in the way of significantly cooler air to central Florida (daytime highs will still be in the mid 80s -- with lows in the 60s), it will significantly drop our humidity. Plan on lots of sunshine for Saturday with only a few more clouds on Sunday. It will be a much different weekend than last across the area!

Have a great day!

Brian Monahan