Cedar Key · Levy County · The Nature Coast
The Nature Coast, north central Florida and the statewide decisions, storms and agencies that reach this shore.
A new Tampa Bay Times breakdown shows Florida's 2026 midterm was closer than any since 2018, with no county-level results yet reported for Levy County.
Fog, light winds and warm afternoons give way to a sharper temperature drop by next weekend, forecasters say.
Statewide results show voters backing Amendment 3's homestead tax relief while still funding local school levies, a split verdict with direct bearing on how Levy County and every Florida district pays for classrooms.
A mild weekend with patchy fog gives way to a sharper cooldown by next weekend, while an Atlantic disturbance is unlikely to develop, per WCJB's First Alert Weather.
NWS data show Central Florida ending the wet season in deficit while a November deluge dropped a 1-in-100-year rainfall on Brevard County, a split pattern worth watching from the Nature Coast.
As flu season arrives early across Florida, researchers explain why cold air really does weaken the body's defenses, and why wet hair isn't the culprit.
Record rain hit Florida's east coast this week, and NOAA says El Niño could bring an unusually wet, stormy winter to the whole peninsula.
Alachua and Marion county voters reshaped local government rules and tax authority Tuesday, a preview of the kind of ballot questions Levy County could face in future elections.
Florida voters approved sweeping property tax cuts Tuesday, and local governments from Chiefland to Cedar Key will eventually have to answer for the lost revenue.
Byron Donalds, Ashley Moody and three other Republicans won every top-of-ballot office Tuesday, keeping the officials who set farm, insurance and legal policy for Cedar Key and Levy County unchanged.
A slow-moving system has dumped up to 7 inches of rain near Lake Okeechobee and closed Okeechobee schools, while forecasters track the storm's exit path well south and east of Cedar Key.
A 1,000-year rain event soaked Palm Beach County and Melbourne over the weekend; Tuesday's statewide outlook offers only a broad North Florida category for voters here.
A slow-moving weather pattern will keep rain chances in play through Tuesday before a cold front finally pushes in drier, cooler air for the weekend.
Earlier sunrises and sunsets arrive this weekend under a 1966 federal law, with Congress still sitting on Florida's bid to end the switch for good.
State voter rolls list nearly 5,700 Floridians over 100 still registered to vote - a reminder that turnout habits built over a century don't fade, even along the Nature Coast.
Saturday favors trick-or-treaters and outdoor plans along the Gulf; Sunday's rain chances climb as daylight saving time ends.
EPA-approved work to replace a stormwater ditch, remove contaminated soil and build an underground containment wall begins this month at the decades-old north central Florida site.
An Alachua County city's budget standoff over whether to keep its own police and fire departments offers a preview of pressures facing small municipalities across north central Florida, including those near Levy County.
Days before Election Day, the Democratic nominee's stop in Gainesville raised a preemption fight that could reach every county budget in Florida, including Levy's.
A ballot measure raising Florida's non-school homestead exemption to $150,000 is drawing warnings from a small Alachua County city about lost road, police and fire funding - a test case for any Nature Coast town that leans on county help.
A stalled pressure pattern is driving gusty northeast winds and above-average heat across North Central Florida through Halloween, with the tropics quiet for now.
A 20th death warrant this year keeps Florida ahead of its own 2025 record, with questions about secrecy and a governor's sole authority following the state statewide.
NOAA records show direct hurricane hits on Florida in November are rare but real - and this stretch of coast has felt them before.
A strong pressure gradient is pushing gale-force winds onto Florida's Atlantic beaches this weekend, but the only advisory reaching Cedar Key waters is a Gulf Coast Small Craft Advisory through early Sunday afternoon.
A new audit finds Gilchrist County's third ambulance isn't consistently staffed, as voters next door prepare to decide a sales surtax that could reshape how rural Florida pays for emergency response.
Hurricane Isaias dropped 120 mph gusts west of its center near Pensacola, and forecasters still aren't sure why, a reminder that the worst wind isn't always where the eye points.
A mild, sunny Friday across the Nature Coast gives way to gusts topping 35 mph by Saturday, forecasters say, with no tropical trouble in sight.
A 43-year-old Alachua County toxic site moves toward a containment wall next summer, a reminder of how federal cleanup timelines work across north central Florida.
More than 400 athletes from 40-plus countries converge on the Alachua County Sports & Events Center for a five-day Pan-American judo series -- a regional draw with no direct bearing on Levy County governance, but one that fills hotel rooms along the US 19/441 corridor.
UF/IFAS data show Florida's evergreen canopy, including the live oaks and cypress around Cedar Key, rarely turns the way northern forests do.
A legal fight over grand jury secrecy and a Democratic ad targeting Attorney General James Uthmeier is playing out in court as Florida heads toward a statewide election that includes Nature Coast voters.
WCJB's First Alert team sees little change in the pattern through Saturday, with only a slim chance of weekend showers and no tropical threat to Florida.
High pressure keeps the Nature Coast dry and comfortable this week, while a Small Craft Advisory and a distant Atlantic disturbance bear watching on the water.
A Jacksonville lawmaker's bid to unseat Sen. Ashley Moody brings data-center regulation and campaign-finance questions into a statewide race that will appear on every Levy County ballot.
A Gainesville rally for Democrat Angie Nixon's Senate bid against appointed incumbent Ashley Moody lands on every Florida ballot, including Levy County's.
A post-frontal push of cool, dry air is holding through next week, with gusty northeast winds prompting a Monday small craft advisory for Cedar Key's Gulf waters.
A drier, northeast wind brings fall-like highs in the 70s but keeps Gulf boaters on alert into next week.
A PolitiFact-style review of the governor's race's dueling hurricane-fund claims lands squarely on a coast where wind and flood premiums already strain household budgets.
A statewide ballot measure to raise Florida's homestead exemption to $250,000 by 2028 would reach every county's tax roll, including Levy's, even as a new WUFT County report details the local budget math with only Alachua County figures so far.
A cold front moving south through Florida will drop humidity and pick up winds across north central Florida, with Monday bringing the area's lowest dew points in months.
A new state wage floor took effect this fall, but a housing researcher's numbers show why the raise barely dents what hourly workers here can afford to pay for a place to live.
A week of rain tied to Hurricane Isaias erased extreme drought from north-central Florida, but the U.S. Drought Monitor shows the region still isn't in the clear as the dry season approaches.
A run of clear nights and warm afternoons across North Central Florida is set to break this weekend, with gusty winds expected along the Nature Coast.
A Gainesville tree-and-plant giveaway shows how the state's natural history museum is staying visible during a closure that runs through Nov. 23 - a reminder for Nature Coast visitors of what's ahead when the doors reopen.
The hurricane's track ran through the Gulf and came ashore hundreds of miles from Cedar Key, but its statewide tornado and rainfall totals show what this coast dodged.
A weak cold front pushing drier, cooler air into North Florida this week offers Cedar Key a brief break from humidity before a stronger system may arrive by next weekend.
A Tallahassee appellate panel says a Leon County grand jury's findings on a $10 million Medicaid settlement must be expunged, a ruling with implications for how Florida agencies handle public money and secrecy.
Forecasters warn Hurricane Isaias could spin up fast-moving, nighttime tornadoes from Pensacola to Jacksonville, a pattern that echoes Milton's 2024 record outbreak - and one Levy County residents should track closely even outside the primary danger zone.
The system is forecast to make landfall near the central Gulf Coast this weekend, but a shift east could change the outlook for Cedar Key and the Big Bend.
A North Florida city's 12-month freeze on AI data centers, and a new state law on utility costs, show what Nature Coast leaders may soon face.
No system has formed yet in the western Gulf, but forecasters give it a 40 percent chance over seven days while a stalled front soaks the Panhandle and pushes rain toward the peninsula.
A Gainesville campaign appearance put Amendment 3's homestead exemption increase back in the spotlight ahead of statewide early voting that begins Oct. 19.
NOAA outlooks point to a soggier, stormier October across Florida's Gulf Coast, with drought relief possible but the tropics still a wild card for Cedar Key.
With Tropical Storm Hanna weakening in the open Atlantic, 2026 is tracking toward one of the quietest hurricane seasons on record - but forecasters say the Gulf Coast should not stand down.
South Florida saw sunny-day flooding over the weekend, and the same astronomical tides that closed A1A will keep cycling through the Gulf and Atlantic coasts into late November.
A neighboring county's mosquito-borne illness alert is a reminder that Levy County and Cedar Key share the same statewide surveillance system.
Tighter work rules and new purchase limits have pushed Florida's SNAP caseload down sharply, and nutrition experts warn the fallout will reach households far outside Central Florida's food pantries.
A rare early-fall cold front is dropping humidity and temperatures across Florida this weekend, but the coastal flooding risk it carries stays on the state's east side, not here.
Tropical Storm Gonzalo formed far off Africa this week, extending an unusually quiet Atlantic season that has yet to produce a hurricane past its historic peak.
Updated meteorological guidance drops the 'lightning crouch' and sharpens the 30-30 rule, with real stakes for anyone working the water or the docks during Florida's afternoon storm season.
The Atlantic's sixth named storm poses no threat to the Gulf Coast, but forecasters say the unusually inactive season is not over yet.
A flesh-eating parasite not seen in a U.S. horse since the 1960s has surfaced in Texas, and state agriculture officials say Florida's climate could support it if it arrives.
Florida's 2026 black bear hunt applications are open, with Marion County's Ocala National Forest again at the center of a fight over lethal management that has echoes for wildlife policy statewide.
A mid-week cold front promises drier air and cooler mornings for the Big Bend, but forecasters warn of gusty winds and building seas before it arrives.
Applications for Florida's black bear hunt lottery are open through Sept. 21, reviving a fight over conservation, cruelty and who gets a say in wildlife policy across the state, including bear country near the Nature Coast.
Explosives-detection dog Beamer, named for Flight 93 passenger Todd Beamer, hangs up her leash at Gainesville Regional Airport, a hub many Levy County travelers use.
Forecasters give a central Atlantic disturbance low odds of development, and even if it grows into Fay, steering patterns point it away from Florida.
A strengthening El Niño has kept storms from strengthening into hurricanes this year, but forecasters and this coast's own history say the quiet won't last through the season.
Daniel Conahan Jr.'s death by lethal injection marks the 15th Florida execution this year, part of a statewide pace that outstrips the record set in 2025.
House Bill 851 mandates autism-specific training for every Florida school district each year; a UF-Alachua County partnership offers one model for how districts might meet it.
A unanimous vote by Florida's university governing board will close enrollment to undocumented students starting in 2027-2028, a rule that reaches the University of Florida, the closest public university for many Levy County students.
A University of Florida class project on lightning, the top cause of weather deaths in the state, took a national student journalism prize; a companion project on ecotourism's limits placed as runner-up.
A Level 1 flash-flood risk, saturated ground and a Saturday Heat Advisory will shape outdoor plans across the Nature Coast through Labor Day.
New NWS figures showing five Florida lightning deaths this year carry direct weight for boaters, anglers and beachgoers along Cedar Key and the Nature Coast.
A WUFT weather report on Florida's 'shark bite capital' focuses on the Atlantic coast, but the conservation math behind it applies to sharks in Nature Coast waters as well.
A Venezuelan mother and son released after two weeks in a Texas detention center highlight a rising arrest rate and a Gainesville Police order that could shape how officers across north central Florida handle immigration status.
A new Board of Governors regulation reaching every Florida public university, including UF, will set safety and enrollment rules that touch Levy County students long before any campus incident occurs.
A University of Florida Sea Grant post on seagrass ecology doesn't mention Cedar Key by name, but the fisheries and monitoring program it describes run straight through the Nature Coast's grass flats.
A new Florida Sea Grant post on statewide seagrass habitat and its citizen-science monitoring program points to the underwater meadows that sustain Cedar Key's fisheries and scalloping.
Dorothy L. Zimmerman helped translate the science behind oyster collapses, algal blooms and seafood safety rules that shaped programs still used along the Nature Coast.
A Florida Highway Patrol report says a sedan failed to yield at a stop sign on CR 340, sending the crash into the path of a northbound tractor-trailer on US 129.
A new University of Florida tagging project offers a $250 reward for reported catches, but it targets Atlantic red snapper, a separate stock from the Gulf fish caught off Cedar Key.
A new NSF-funded UF project will use artificial intelligence to model how land-use and climate changes affect water and carbon systems statewide, with no Cedar Key-specific application yet named.
A free UF/IFAS tool merges three older apps into one guide for choosing plants that fit local soil, sun and water conditions - useful for anyone gardening near the Gulf.
The National Hurricane Center's twice-daily outlook shows a quiet Atlantic basin heading into the season's historical peak, even as forecasters track development elsewhere in the Pacific.
Brian S. Brijbag, who has had plays staged off-Broadway and abroad, premieres "One Seat Over" at Stage West Playhouse on 22 August, the anchor of the theatre's New Works Festival on the Nature Coast.
The National Hurricane Center's latest outlook shows a quiet Atlantic even as the calendar turns toward the season's historic peak.
NOAA is holding to a below-normal 2026 season. Cedar Key’s three worst storms in living memory all arrived in the back half of the calendar, and the back half starts now.
The Suwannee River Water Management District lists every permit it grants, with the project name, the county and the full application. It is also where the objection window opens.
The Great Southeast Pollinator Census runs on 21 and 22 August. UF/IFAS wants all 67 counties taking part this year, Levy County included.
The National Weather Service forecast for Cedar Key and Levy County, with any watches or warnings in force.
