Maybe a Hurricane Would Help

It is highly unusual for anyone to go around rooting for hurricanes to hit them, but I'm beginning to wonder whether that might be the only way to avoid possibly the most disastrous forest fire season we've ever had. Tuesday morning I stepped out of my front door to run around the block (.67 mile). To my disgust, the air was thick again with smoky haze, something that I had thought we were rid of by late spring this year.

There are reportedly three forest fires ringing Gainesville, and any slight shift in the wind is liable to send that noxious haze descending over our area. We are already in the midst of a drought, which has caused a poor harvest of hay, an important agricultural product of Alachua county (where I live). Other than an occasional cold front, often weak and sometimes even rainless, the shifting seasonal weather patterns are diminishing the likelihood of showers and storms coming into the area from the Gulf of Mexico. We need a lot of rain, and in a hurry.

So I understand those in Texas who are deploring the fact that, for once, they actually WANT a tropical storm system to hit their state and go inland to provide desperately needed rain; but the tropical storms are all veering away from the Texas coastline like a repelling magnet. Of course, it's the rain we need and not the wind: a simple tropical depression will do fine, thank you. Not that there wouldn't be some flooding associated with such a storm. But...

Unlike the case in the northeastern U.S., where basement after basement was flooded by Hurricane Irene and the remnants of Lee, buildings around here in Florida tend not to have basements. Hence, a smaller flooding problem. Add to that the fact that, as in Texas (and unlike in places like Vermont and parts of many other states), Florida isn't susceptible to floods caused by downhill flow from nearby mountains (although both states have issues with rivers overflowing into adjacent plains).

No, I don't particularly want a strong hurricane to hit us this year (or any year, for that matter). But we do desperately need to recoup our natural fresh water and moisten the ground, both to save our agriculture and to prevent the fire-friendly dry conditions that have plagued Florida over the past few years, and this year especially.