Unofficial "no name"

Sometimes you get a big rain week and don’t know it.



At least that’s how it felt where I was standing.

I was at Naples Beach on three occasions Memorial Day weekend. Giant wet season clouds were scaling the skies to the north and inland – it was quite a show, but the liquid version never made its way over my head.


At a larger scale, the same sort of thing unfolded this week across the peninsula.

Central and northeast Florida fell into the grips of a sky darkening and record drenching extratropical storm. That's a fancy name for a mid-latitude low that has neither tropical or polar origins.


Flooding was particularly severe in Volusia County (source) and Daytona Beach has recorded upwards of 20 inches for the month of May (source).

That’s unusual for any month, but particularly so for May: The wet season has only just begun and Hurricane Season’s official start is still days away.



In comparison, it was typical wet season fare for South Florida – mostly sunny skies through the morning, giving way to spotty thundershowers by the afternoon.

With one big exception:

Ten inches of rain from that mid-latitude low fell in the upper reaches of the Kissimmee River basin this past week. That puts it at almost a foot for the month – matching what Fay-drenched August of 2008.



Those waters will be flowing south in the weeks to come.

Isn’t it so often the case that the “no name” storms that pack the most water?

And this one wasn’t even tropical, but it sure felt that way … (although, as I stated earlier, this was one storm I didn’t feel).