The National Weather Service issued a flood watch Tuesday for Southwest Florida.
Randy Smith, a spokesperson for the South Florida Water Management District, said Collier County averaged 3.5 inches of daily rainfall from Saturday to Monday.
Lee County averaged almost 5 inches.
Lee County Natural Resources Operations Manager Kurt Harclerode said the current weather pattern is not typical of the wet season.
“It’s not abnormal to get high rainfall amounts during the summer,” Harclerode said. “It’s just this pattern where we’re getting it morning, noon and night is somewhat unusual for our normal summertime rainy season pattern.”
Still, the rains help relieve pressure on the area’s aquifers.
“We need this type of rain to recharge some of our surficial aquifers, some of our shallow aquifers," Harclerode said. "The other good thing it does is when we have rainfall like this we’re not watering crops or our yards hopefully with irrigation water so that gives the aquifer the chance to recover.”
The advisory says rain is expected to continue through Wednesday morning.
