Moderate to heavy rain (1.5-4.5 inches) fell for the second consecutive week across much of the Southeast, further soaking the soils and causing rivers to reach much-above or near-record high flows in the northern halves of Alabama and Georgia, most of South Carolina, western North Carolina, and southern Virginia. This was most notable at the 7-, 14-, and 28-day USGS average stream flows as the 1-day and instantaneous time scales had reduced (but still above-normal) values. In sharp contrast, areas along the eastern Gulf and southern Atlantic Coasts (mainly Florida) only received scattered lighter amounts (less than an inch). The D0 and D1 in Florida and extreme southwestern Alabama remained, although a few reductions in the D0 areas were made in northeastern and central Florida where enough rain fell. These D0s were also redrawn to reflect the largest short-term deficits and SPIs, along with lower USGS stream flows (<25th percentile). In the north-central Florida Panhandle, D2 was introduced to the counties of Wakulla, Leon, and Jefferson as the heaviest precipitation has largely bypassed this area during the past year, resulting in a 20.18 inch annual deficit at Tallahassee, FL, for 2019. Total precipitation last year was 39.05 inches compared to a normal of 59.23 inches. Since Jan. 1, 2020, Tallahassee is already 4.20 inches below normal (3.06” vs 7.26” as of Feb. 18). In a weird twist due to the heavy upstream rainfall, smaller local rivers in the 3 Florida counties were at near-record low levels while the much larger Apalachicola River just to the west was at near-record high levels.

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