It rained! Elation over precipitation causes people to stop and watch the drops. And the forecast has more thunderstorms on the way.

[Times photo: Lisa DeJong] Cameron Korb, 11, lets rainwater rush over his toes in front of his house on 10th Avenue NE in St. Petersburg.

By DAVID BALLINGRUD

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 8, 2000

Vera Filipelli can be forgiven for being momentarily confused. It has been a long time.

"Snow," she said as she looked out an office window at the Derby Lane greyhound track in St. Petersburg.

[Times photo: Dirk Shadd]

Judie Leddy wades through the water on her way back to the car after shopping on Beach Drive. The rain caused some brief flooding.

Well, no. But an unusual occurrence nevertheless.

It finally rained in the drought-parched Tampa Bay area Wednesday, and though it was more preview than main event, it could not have been more welcome.

"Very refreshing," said Eric Brown, eyeing a 2-inch puddle of water at the end of his Tampa Heights driveway. "I almost want to drink it."

A line of thundershowers brought not only the first rains of the season, but a bruising combination of wind and hail to some neighborhoods. Streets were briefly flooded and limbs knocked from trees in northeast St. Petersburg, and a tornado warning was issued in eastern Hillsborough County. The Florida Highway Patrol reported dozens of fender-benders.

More thunderstorms are expected today, as moist air streams across the state from the Atlantic and then collides with equally wet air from the gulf.

There was another, more ominous sign of seasonal change Wednesday, as the National Hurricane Center began issuing advisories on a tropical depression deep in the southern Gulf of Mexico. It is expected to move north toward Texas over the next few days..

Citrus and Hernando stayed dry Wednesday, but for most people in the Tampa Bay area the rain was a reason to smile.

Filipelli works in media relations for the Derby Lane greyhound track, and, of course, knew it wasn't really snow she was seeing out her window.

"But I used to live in Wisconsin," she said, "and the way the wind swirled it around in circles -- big drops! -- it looked like snow. It was neat."

The gray skies opened in downtown Tampa about 2 p.m. Some employees at the Franklin Exchange office building took a moment to watch.

"I'd forgotten what it looked like," said a smiling Brian Walker, 36, a security systems worker, as the gutters filled and the scent of ozone mixed with the hot air off the street.

Hillsborough County Commissioner Ben Wacksman interrupted a discussion about Internet access to pornography on library computers. "Madam chairwoman, I just wanted to point out it's raining. Look out the window," he said. Commissioners and audience cheered, then went back to work.

"I hope it keeps raining, so we can get our water restrictions lifted, and we can lift the ban on fireworks for the Fourth of July," said Sandra McBride, the property manager at Franklin Exchange.

Parts of Pasco and Hillsborough counties got between one and two inches, and a storm that lingered in Pinellas dropped three to four inches.

National Weather Service meteorologist Walt Zaleski said a lot of trees will surrender limbs to wind in the next new months.

"They are stressed," he said. "They are dry and have lost their resiliency; they don't spring back the way they normally would."

It will take time to break the drought's hold on the state.

Agriculture Commissioner Bob Crawford said he may ask Gov. Jeb Bush to request federal aid for farmers in North Florida, where drought conditions threaten $250-million in crops such as corn, cotton and peanuts.

Crop damage in Central and South Florida has not been as extensive because farms there, often citrus farms, usually have irrigation systems. And the area has received more rain.

Crawford predicted that conditions likely would not improve in time to save North Florida crops. "The forecasters have predicted we were going to have rain in the middle of May, and that did not occur," he said.

First depression forms

Satellites told forecasters in the National Hurricane Center Wednesday that disturbed weather in the Bay of Campeche was beginning to develop a cyclonic circulation. Advisories on the season's first tropical depression were issued soon after.

The center of the system is poorly defined, and conditions do not favor immediate strengthening. Hurricane center models say that could change, however, and the system could reach tropical storm strength in a couple of days.

Movement to the northwest or north is expected through Friday.

With cold water still present in the eastern Pacific Ocean, forecaster William Gray of Colorado State University has added a storm to his season forecast.

For the 2000 season which runs June 1 though Nov. 30, Gray now predicts 12 named storms, eight of those 12 hurricanes. Four of the eight hurricanes will be intense storms, Gray says.

Gray attributes the revision to the continuing presence of cool Pacific Ocean waters near the equator known as La Nina.

He said residents along the U.S. Atlantic Coast, including Florida, have an increasing chance of being hit by one or more major storms with winds above 100 mph.

-- Times staff writers Linda Gibson, Larry Dougherty, Joe Humphrey, Sharon Bond and William Yardley contributed to this report. Information from the Associated Press also was used.

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