Weekend Rain Soaks Brooksville

BROOKSVILLE - The sounds of cars splashing through puddles echoed across busy streets all day Sunday.

The entire region was drenched with rain.

The Brooksville airport recorded 1.87 inches of rainfall from 11 a.m. Friday until 5 p.m. Sunday. Other areas of Hernando County likely received more. Continued showers were expected last night and today.

Other parts of the Tampa region received significantly more rain - including Clearwater (three inches), Hudson (three inches) and New Port Richey (four inches).

"It's going to remain on the wet side," said AccuWeather meteorologist Jon Pachecko. "There is a lot of moisture in place throughout the Gulf Coast. We can expect some more rainfall throughout Wednesday and maybe Thursday."

Dry lakes and closed boat ramps are proof that Hernando County lags behind other areas in the amount of rainfall. That isn't just the case in the last few months. Brooksville and Spring Hill have been under watering restrictions during the past two-and-a-half years.

The Southwest Florida Water Management District, also known as Swiftmud, reported a total annual rainfall of 19.78 inches as of June 30, considerably below average. The recent showers have helped, but it has not made up for the four-inch deficiency for the year.

Other counties - namely Sumter, Pinellas and Hillsborough - have been well above normal. Pasco County is headed there, particularly in the western part of the state.

A heavy thunderstorm warning was announced late Saturday night in areas across Pasco, Hillsborough and Pinellas counties. As predicted, those areas were hit hard with rain.

Part of that storm surge also made its way to Hernando Beach.

Meteorologists have no explanation as to why the Brooksville and Spring Hill areas have lagged behind the rest of the region this year.

"That's the way storms have been setting up recently and there's no definite answer for it," said Pachecko. "That's the nature of storms throughout Florida. They are sporadic, or random in nature ... There are lots of areas in the state that are just begging for rain."