East Coast storm to keep chill in air

Sunday's rain brought a decrease in the county's drought index, but it will be short-lived, forecasters say.

[Times photo: Maurice Rivenbark] Gloria Harris pulls branches from a large oak tree that fell on her house at 19476 Wildwood Drive, just west of Brooksville, at about 12:30 p.m. Monday. The tree crushed a metal-roofed carport attached to the house. Harris said no one was home when the tree fell. Countywide, only minor wind damage was reported.

By JEFFREY S. SOLOCHEK

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 6, 2001

The storms that blasted into the eastern United States over the weekend will continue to cool Hernando County for the rest of the week.

Temperatures are expected to dip to freezing overnight, said Russell Henes, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service at Ruskin. Wind gusts of 25 mph could prompt the weather service to issue wind chill advisories in the counties north of the Tampa Bay area.

Afternoon highs appear unlikely to get much above 60 early in the week, then should inch toward 70 by the weekend.

The rains that came with the cold front offered little more than a brief respite from the state's two-year drought, Henes said. There's no rain in the forecast until Friday at the earliest, and those showers are expected to be scattered.

On Sunday, Brooksville had 1.4 inches of rain at the airport and 1.17 inches at the University of Florida agriculture station. Spring Hill got 1.2 inches, said Ed Shumaker, a St. Petersburg Times weather watcher.

The Keetch-Byram Drought Index, a rating for an area's surface dryness, dropped 76 points to 539 on Sunday and was expected to dip again for Monday's average. On the index, 800 represents extreme drought and zero signifies full saturation.

But the reduction is momentary, county Fire-Rescue Chief Mike Nickerson said, and the county's ban on outdoor burning will stay in effect.

"We're under a gubernatorial burn ban, so even if the (county commissioners) wanted to lift it, they couldn't," Nickerson said.

Only minor wind damage was reported Monday. About 12:30 p.m., winds knocked a large oak tree onto Gloria Harris' home on Wildwood Drive just west of Brooksville. The tree crushed a metal-roofed carport attached to the house. No one was injured.

- Times photographer Maurice Rivenbark contributed to this report.

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