In 2025 Drought May Surpass Hurricanes as a Natural Disaster in SW FL

As I am writing this on Dec. 6, 2025, a very unusual condition has occurred. During the 2025 hurricane season no storms made landfall on the US mainland, something that has not happened since 2015. .Yet we continue to recover and rebuild from a series of hurricanes as recently as October of 2024, most notably Milton. The 10 foot storm surge from Milton inundated Manasota Key, destroyed homes and threw massive amounts of sand up on the island. While we are happy to have a hurricane season without landfalls this year (2025) there is now a serious drought. Rainfall has been very low and we are currently 14 inches below the long term average rainfall for the year. Availability of fresh water is now a major problem around the world and many US cities face massive shortfalls in water. We are chronically over-pumping surface and ground water sources yet surprisingly development and issuance of water permits and waste of water on lawns seems to continue at a high pace. This is a problem not just for western cities built in deserts but places like Atlanta are essentially out of water and battles over water rights with Alabama and Florida are fierce. Rising sea levels will of course intensify problems with salt water intrusion in aquifers, especially in places such as Miami.

Given this situation it is interesting to consider how nature is coping long before we have any hope of getting significant rainfall in May. April is actually our driest month! I do not irrigate my yard except with occasional hand watering. Thus grass is faring poorly unless it is St Augustine grass down in the tidal zone where it is still green. In the rest of the yard, grass is brown but other more drought tolerant plants in the “lawn” remain green and some are even flowering.

Our most common tree locally is the slash pine and we still have a few remnants of the forest that once (in the middle 1800’s) covered this area before widespread lumbering and turpentine operations destroyed them. This beautiful mature slash pine in Wildflower Preserve represents a mature tree with a rounded crown which is likely 100-200 years old. Many of these older trees have succumbed to the prevalent winter burning which is not the natural cycle which would have been primarily during summer thunderstorms. Pines are actually a sub-climax species which under more natural conditions would have been replaced by a climax canopy of hardwoods such as oaks.

Although winter is not the characteristic time for flowers there are some natural species that bloom now. This W Indian meadow beauty ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhexia ) is particularly interesting due to its unusual method of pollination. Bees use “buzz pollination” to shake the pollen out of the flower and collect it. Thus only certain native pollinators can accomplish this and not the invasive feral honeybee. Some butterflies are present and feeding most often on non-native flowers. Monarchs prefer the flowers of tropical milkweed. This queen is finding nectar on tassel flower. A viceroy was in an area of cowpeas as was a Cassius blue. A large yellow bumblebee and a dark carpenter bee share the non-invasive and beautiful Mexican sunflower.

One non-native reptile that is not popular among gardeners is the Mexican ctenosaur/iguana which has invaded my yard over the past several years. I have been surprised that they have not posed a major problem eating my plants. Much of their diet appears to be native and non-native “weeds” growing in the “lawn.” They do seem to be providing a major food source for red shouldered hawks. So far there is an apparently good relation with my gopher tortoises and box turtles. Indeed the turtles are sharing some living space under my sheds with the iguanas. Two gophers were mating recently which is a difficult practical matter for an animal inside a bony box. One morphological feature that assists the male in mounting the female is a concave lower shell/plastron. You can also see a considerable number of growth rings on the turtle shells which record annual changes in conditions. Turtles are quite long lived.

Birds are a mixture of migrants/winter residents and permanent residents. Warblers such as these palms and yellow rumps migrate from the northern latitudes as far as Canada. The red bellied woodpecker (this is a male with most of the top of the head red) are residents as are cardinals. Phoebes may be migrants or residents. The cattle egret is a very interesting case which apparently was displaced from Africa to S America by storms and moved north into the US- it could be considered a recent “native” since it moved on its own. The frigate is a very wide ranging species that soars on wind currents to and from the Caribbean. This individual was alone which is unusual and it did not appear on southerly winds.

So I guess we must get used to the fact that very little is stable or guaranteed. We were fortunate to have a low year for storms but have been struck by a severe drought. Real estate sales are up compared to this time last year but sale prices are somewhat lower. Building is at a high level as if developers are rushing to get their projects finished before the environmental “hammer” falls (mainly lack of fresh water) and buyer concern rises. Do not forget that as recently as 2008-2011 there was a massive drop in home sales and a huge increase in foreclosures. Human activities are closely tied to Nature now with so much land being built up. What is surprising is that so much natural beauty remains. Enjoy it and do your part in your small mini-verse to make things a little bit better.