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Cullum Hasty doesn’t need a meteorologist to tell him South Florida is in the midst of one of the worst droughts in recent history.

Hasty, who lives at the headwaters of the Imperial River, can see what two years of below-average rainfall have done when he steps out of his back door.

“I’m seeing bank that I’ve never seen before,” said Hasty, who has lived in Bonita since the early 1990s. “This year was by far the least water I’ve ever seen in the river through the wet season.”

Ponds that normally fill up during the rainy season stayed dry. The dry season brought water so low that his canoe scrapes bottom in certain parts of the river.

The river gives a good above-ground visual of the state of Southwest Florida’s groundwater situation. Many of the underground aquifers that the area relies on for water are at or nearing record lows.

Rainfall in Southwest Florida was 6.9 inches below normal in 2006 and 17.2 inches below normal in 2007, according to figures from the South Florida Water Management District. The two years’ 40.5 inches of rain is 79 percent of the region’s average rainfall.

The situation caused the district board to mandate once-per-week water restrictions, the toughest in the agency’s history. The restrictions take effect across the district’s 16-county region Tuesday.

For now, there is still water in the river east of Interstate 75, where Hasty lives, but he is worried about what it will look like by the end of dry season if the rains don’t come.

A moderate La Niña will bring a warmer and drier dry season for at least the next two months, said Andy Tingler, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Miami.

A La Niña is brought about by cooling waters around the equatorial Pacific Ocean and forces moisture-bearing fronts and weather systems further north.

So far, the first three months of the dry season brought a deficit of two to three inches of rain across the district.

“It doesn’t bode very well from a regional water supply standpoint,” said Jesus Rodriguez, spokesman for the water district. “We’re already seeing water levels across the board that are well below where we were at this point last year.”

Lake Okeechobee is a good four feet below where it should be at this time of year and with more than four months of dry season ahead, the district is preparing for the worst. The district’s board recently approved spending $25 million to install more pumps on the lake so needed water can still be sucked out when the lake hits a predicted low of seven feet. That would be more than a foot lower than it’s ever been.

The area’s aquifers will likely be in uncharted territory by the spring as well.

The Sandstone Aquifer in Lehigh Acres already is lower than it’s ever been in Lee County’s 25 years of recorded history for this time of year. And it’s still dropping.

“We don’t want that to continue so when April comes, we don’t have any water left,” said Lee Werst, hydrologist for Lee County government. “This is the worst water-level-wise I’ve ever seen. It’s dry out.”

In the past, when people in Southwest Florida were beginning to worry about record droughts, the area was fortunate enough to get rainfall, said Werst, who has been watching water levels in Lee for 26 years.

“I hope we don’t have to go to the next phase of restrictions,” said Werst, referring to the possible two-hour-per-week watering window instead of the four hours residents will now have. “We would see a financial loss to this area as well as a natural loss. I think it’s going to really hurt everyone.”

If an aquifer drops below a certain level and does not recover for a period of time, by law, the county is forced to stop development in the area to protect the health of the aquifer.

Florida Administrative Code prevents overusing an aquifer because it could become damaged beyond repair.

Thankfully, aquifers in other parts of the county are nowhere near that level.

The Lower Tamiami Aquifer, which serves much of Bonita Springs and parts of Collier County, is above where it was during the 2001 drought. Last year, the aquifer was setting records at the end of November and into January.

However, that doesn’t mean people should stop conserving, Werst said.

Conservation is why the aquifer is in better shape than it was last year.

“Aquifers can drop very quickly,” he said. “We’re talking about three or four feet difference from the worst ever.”

Water restrictions prompted by the ongoing drought are prompting community associations and golf courses to change their habits.

At Mediterra, along the Collier-Lee county line, the days of soaking brown spots with sprinklers is over, golf course operations director Scott Whorrall said.

The community doesn’t get reclaimed water, which is exempt from restrictions.

“Hand-watering with hoses is about the only way to keep things green,’’ he said.

Whorrall said the golf course cut back by 30 percent the amount of flowers it has planted and is planting more drought-tolerant species.

More natural places like Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary also are adapting to the drought, sanctuary manager Ed Carlson said.

Alligators are retreating to their caves. Deer and wild turkey are finding new dry spots to forage for food.

The sanctuary has never seen water levels lower at this time of the year since it started keeping records in 1954, Carlson said.

The drought probably will mean wading birds and wood storks will not nest, instinctively knowing that a lack of rain in the wet season means not enough food to support young in the dry season.

“They’ve been through this before,’’ Carlson said.

Private wells haven’t been affected by the low aquifers yet, but by spring, older, more shallow wells will likely start to go dry, said Kurt Harclerode, operations manager for Lee County Natural Resources.

“If we haven’t had any rain during the dry season and we get into March and April and start to have higher temperatures, the aquifers could start dropping,” Harclerode said.

The district needs some significant rain events to pull itself out of the drought, Rodriguez said.

And the rain needs to fall in the right places, he said. Last year, the Miami area had above-average rainfall. Meanwhile, areas north of Lake Okeechobee, where the rain was needed, were dry.

Residents like Hasty worry what will happen if those rains don’t come this year.

“If the drought persists for years, it will be worrisome,” he said. “I’ll start worrying about it this summer if we don’t get the water.”