Early bird special?

Hot off the press, or in this case – hot out of the camera (and it was a scorcher today): I snapped each of the photos below earlier this afternoon.



They show three “tell tale” signs of the wet season:

(1) Afternoon cumulonimbus clouds rising out of the Everglades,
(2) Canals filled with water up to the brim, and
(3) A stout south wind from the south, (equal parts prevailing and sea breezes).



Does that mean we have an early start to the wet season?

Find out the stunning conclusion to this meteorological mystery tomorrow, in the journal’s weekly “Rain or Shine Report.”


But first, do you have any guesses?


And you can view more water images from all across the world at Watery Wednesday.

One and only

What’s the most famous river in south Florida?

That would be Everglades Nat’l Park’s Shark River Slough.

It’s not actually a river though, even though it has the term “river” in its name – thanks to the original explorers who ran boats up the mouth of its estuarine channel to its interior freshwater source … and even though it has been coined the “River of Grass” by Marjorie Stoneham Douglas (the modern-day matriarch of the rally cry to restore the Everglades) in her landmark book of that same title.

It is a slough!

A slough is sort of like a river, but without a channel, or rather a very wide channel, and filled with grass, or a special type of grass, called saw grass, which actually isn't a grass at all, but rather a sedge, and either way its more than just a monoculture of Cladium jamaicense (as the botanists call it), but rather an assemblage of subtropical wetland flora.  

So is it a wetland?

Sort of but it flows, in a broad expanse of water called sheet flow through an aquatic labyrinth of Lilipution mountains and valleys that we call the ridge and slough landscape, which is also punctuated by bay heads, tree islands, and occasional cypress domes and pine uplands on its outskirts.

Did I mention the Rocky Glades?

Suffice it to say that there is no place quite like it – or as Marjorie Stoneham Douglas would say – “There is only one Everglades” … even if on a recent trip to Belgium I was struck by he similarity of their High Fens (Hautes Fagnes) to Florida’s famed flowing marsh, (or was I just homesick)?

Does the Hautes Fagnes have rivers you ask?

No, but it is the headwater source to quite a few – nine to be exact – one of which is the Vesdre, which is dammed at its upstream source (as shown below).




But are any of them like the “River of Grass?”

Not a chance, there’s only one Everglades.

Sinus headache weather

The halcyon good weather of the past 2 weeks lulled me to sleep, and then reality set in -- the winds shifted.

A front approaching from the northwest is drawing up a slug of moist and cloudy skies from the southwest.

That moist air flow put some curl in the surf (usually the gulf coast is placid), drizzled us a few rain drops, and gave us a blanket of overcast skies. 

But even if you didn’t make it to the beach or venture outside for that matter, the tell tale sign was hard to ignore: cranky ankles, bum sports knees, and – most dehabilitating of all – the dreaded sinus headaches were acting up all across town.

I was fortunate, my sinuses were fine, and I escaped my athletic youth relatively scot-free – but I did get a minor heart palpitation glancing at the Naples weather chart.



The past two nights never made it below the 70º F mark!

That’s an early taste of the long summer nights to come – from June through September – when early morning temperatures hover in the 70º - 75º F range.)

But it’s still premature to call it summer just yet.

Naples average nighttime low just broke above 60º F mark, (and on average it doesn’t break above 70º until the end of May).

That leaves us a solid two months of good spring weather … starting tomorrow, when that cold front finally breaks through!

We'll get at least one night in the high 50s out of it.

82 years and flowing

You’ve heard of the expression – “a lot of water has passed under the bridge.” In this case, it’s sort of the same, but not under, or a bridge, but rather “over a weir.”

The U.S. Geological Survey has been collecting flow data from Deer Creek, at the weir shown below, since 1926.




Add it to the list of reasons why I love Rocks State Park. In my humble opinion, it’s the greatest nature park in the world – bare none! (Yes, Yosemite is great, so too is the Grand Canyon, and Big Cypress Nat'l Preserve is exquisite, but none of the above has a King and Queens Seat, or a freshet of water quite like the roar of "Rocks."  Am I biased? ... I'll let you be the judge.)

The first graph is what I call a “poor man’s data dump.”

It shows weekly flows from 1970 to present in a calendar format. You read it just like a book – years from top to bottom and months from left to right. The big orange dots shows high-order weekly flows (over 300 cfs), the blue dots show the middle range (100-300 cfs), and the gray dashes extreme low-water flows.

A few things jump out:  

(1) The big orange dot is from Hurricane Agnes. One of my first memories is taking cover in our basement to ride out the storm. (2) 2001-2002 was the drought of record. It barely flowed but at a trickle for 2 straight years, and notably it missed its usually reliable spring flush. (3) Also note the extended peak flow events where the “blue dots” span the entire calendar year.



The second graph reports total yearly flow volumes. Agnes’s 1972, 1979, 1996, and 2003 stand out as peak flow years. Compare those to the drought years of 1981 and 2002, which registered a fourth the volume of the peak years.

Rocks state park is more than just another pretty place:

It’s a hydrological treasure trove!

And all thanks to the U.S. Geological Survey … 82 years and running (or in this case, flowing).

Forever young

While other fathers took their sons hiking in the woods, or fishing in streams, and for an elite few – golfing at the country club – my father found a unique way of combining all three.



He’d roll the car to a stop on an undesignated shoulder of twisty country road. Then he’d cut off the engine. The “official” entrance of Winters Run country club was just over the rise, and, more importantly for my father – out of sight.

Two doors down, my friend’s father was an “official” member of the club, spent weekends there, donned its cleated shoe, khaki pant, and collared shirt attire, and strode the well manicured grounds in wide motions – tee after tee after tee after tee – refining the fine art of the golf swing.


My father had me “switch into my old sneakers” and further directed me to “hug the tree line” on our clandestine caper to where I was not quite sure – but as sons do, I followed him anyway – until we reached it: a crooked run of rapids with the same name as the country club, on the other bank of which flapped the flag on the green of the 16th hole.

“Some balls make it in that hole,” my father reasoned out loud, “but more make it into the stream.” (So that’s why he had me carry in a telescopic retractable ball scoop!)  

First we scooped out what balls we could from the waters edge. Next we tip toe our way out on the rocks, and eventually into the shallows itself. The icy water soaked through my sneakers (it was fall).

We bagged a good many, enough for me anyhow.


But my father could not leave well enough alone. “Down there,” he said, pointing into a hole behind the riffle. “That’s where they all are!”

He was right – it was the mother load.

And it was also an ending I knew all too well.

Either a rock gave way or a patch of algae slipped him up: All I heard was a big “SPLASH!”

(But he got those golf balls. And it was the mother load.)


As funny as it is in retrospect, not only did we not laugh in the moment, we simultaneously, instinctively, (and silently) agreed, on the spot, as he emerged from Winters Run – in a silent “father-son” code – that yes, he did fall in the water, but no, he never got “wet.”

That was important to my father. Who is a good son not to oblige?



He had me play the 17th and 18th holes on our way back – as he watched in his sloshing wet sneakers – under the cover of shortened light of the dying fall days.

Thirty years later I still think about that water hole. That’s the hydrologist in me … and the son, (but not the golfer)!

Forever glades

I was out at Everglades Nat’l Park’s Shark Valley earlier this summer, when waters were peaking in the weeks following Fay – and “seemingly” climbing to the tippy top rung of the water cycle ladder – thanks to early October rains (a common occurrence in Miami).

“Surely waters couldn’t rise any higher” I thought to myself.

Turns out I was wrong: they could, but they wouldn’t, although they have in the past.

Let me explain.



The gates that deliver water into the park were open as high as they could go, but the water, quite literally, had “no place” to go. Why so? Waters on the downstream side of the gates were just as high as the pooled water behind the gates … or almost.

In the hydrologic trade, we call that – somewhat quizzically (and with forlorn face) –a “tailwater control” situation.

Up north – in the land where gates are “headwater” controlled – you open a gate and the water does exactly what you tell it to do. It flows downstream.


In the Everglades, trying to coax water through a gate is a careful calculus of head and tail water stage, topographic slopes, and – where gravity needs some extra help or the underlying lime rock is particularly leaky – also add surface water pumps to the mix.

Chalk it up as another hydrologic irregularity (and complexity) of the Everglades.




In any regard, in looking at the data, I was surprised to see that not only was this past summer not all that remarkably high (despite the epic deluge from Fay), but that water levels in Shark River Slough, as we speak, are currently at a 15-year low water mark for late March.

That puts Shark River at the same mid March stage as the droughty spring that followed the “summer without a wet season” of 2007. That was the year that Shark Valley stage stayed relatively low all summer (a full foot lower than Fay’s 2008 peak) – and it’s headwater gates stayed mostly closed.

That makes it all the more surprising that current stage have dropped to a similar low spot this spring.



“Surely waters can’t get any lower?”

That’s a question we’ll be watching in the weeks to come.

Nowhere and everywhere

In the Big Cypress Swamp, water is alternatively "everywhere" ... or "nowhere to be found." 



That contrasts to up on the continent (at least in most watersheds), where you have to hunt for water, but when you do find it -- in the form of a stream, or creek, or even a little riffle (as shown in the above video) -- it's there all year round ... even if it dries down to a trickle of it's former self in late summer and fall.

That wasn't the case on this mid winter day, following a frontal shower.


Compare that to south Florida's Big Cypress Nat'l Preserve in its "nowhere to be found" water season: spring. My trusty dowsing rod led me to the correct spot -- a cypress dome, which was perplexingly dry as a bone on the surface.

Did my dowsing rod steer my wrong?



I forgot to mention about the ground water.

It's "everywhere" in south Florida, just a few feet below the surface -- and that's all year round. (And that also means I'm "still perfect" with my dowsing rod ... technically speaking.)


See and read more "Friday Sky Watch" information from all layers of the troposphere by clicking here.

Discerning rain beggar

One rainfall does not make a dry season, but it doesn’t hurt either – so in the spirit of the old saying that “beggars can’t be choosers” – we’ll take it anyway.

That being said, it would have been nice to see it spread out a little more evenly.



(Broward, West Palm Beach, and Miami-Dade led the way with upwards of a half inch, but the Kissimmee and Southwest Coast only registered a few tenths of an inch. South Florida-wide the weekly total was just under an inch.)

And, while we’re on the topic, it would have been nice to see those really heavy downpours fall in the Everglades – not along the coast where they drain rapidly into canals and out to tide.

Word spread like wildfire across south Florida late last week that Broward County was under flood advisory warning. Here on the west coast we watched in eager anticipation, and yes it rained, but we missed out on most of the liquid bounty.


As luck would have it, however, Collier County’s eastern half straddled the divide. That put a solid inch or two of rain in Big Cypress Nat'l Preserve’s southern half, even though its northeast corner got a tenth of an inch or so drizzle out of it.


Big Cypress Nat’l Preserve is a large tract of remnant Everglades, which unlike developed parts of Florida (particularly along the coast) can assimilate large amounts of rainfall in its wetlands where it is slowly absorbed into the ground and evaporated away by the sun.

No need for a flood advisory warning here! 

(Although we have had our share of roads go underwater during the wet season.)


I took note of how last week’s state-wide distribution was almost the mirror opposite of the normal dry season rain distribution.

Florida’s winter (Dec – Mar) is wettest on the panhandle and progressively dries as you move south.

That’s because fronts play a bigger role up north, especially during the early spring when the continental winter storm cycle is still in motion.

But of course one rainfall does not make a dry season.



In summary, one rainfall does not make a dry season, but it can cause flooding – locally and temporarily – even in the middle of our seasonal drought.

Word over in Miami is that they still need more rain!

Cold front cliche

Cold fronts are celebrated in Florida, but they have almost become cliché.

It’s the sports equivalent of watching the highlight reel of all the home runs in a baseball game, but missing the hidden subtleties that unfolded behind the scene: the pitch count, previous at bats, pinch hitter substitutions, wind direction …



Did somebody mention wind direction?

The past few days have enveloped with crisp blue skies, splendidly dry air, and a stiff breeze out of the east.

Just don’t confuse it with a cold front.



Yes, the air is being pumped down from up north, but its spinning in clockwise from the east off a giant high pressure cell parked over the Carolinas.

This, in my opinion, is Florida’s premiere weather pattern. 

The low humidity and steady wind literally (and figuratively) lifts the weight from your shoulders. You cannot help but feel an extra skip in your step in the presence of such an atmospheric high.


Speaking of cold fronts, they will continue to be our "designated hitter" through the spring – in terms of "home run" rain events – until the summer rainy season begins.

Not surprisingly, cold fronts play a bigger role in north Florida than the south peninsula, which explains the different rainfall pattern between, say, Naples (down south) and Tallahassee (up north).

Tallahassee experiences spring and summer rainy season peaks, compared to a single-modal summer peak in Naples.

So as much as we enjoy the high-pressure easterly air flow, in the presence of a dry rainless spring, they also add to the fire threat.

The good news, of course, is that we just got rain. The bad news, however, is that most of it fell to the east on the other side of the Everglades.


With a dry easterly blowing, who could care either way?

Florida's famous toucan

Funny how towns grow and distances shrink:

what used to be on the outside is now on the inside looking out.

Back in the day, Naples Zoo used to lie in a tucked away corner on the outskirts of town.

Now it's in the center.

That especially applies to Naples famous toucan.

Its original roost -- for the first few decades of its existence -- was a half mile down the road from its current perch, and up high off the ground -- about 20 ft up -- overlooking the motorists puttering along southwest Florida's main drag: Tamiami Trail.

Actually, it was the motorists looking up at the toucan, not the other way around.  

It's beak pointed them "off the beaten path" to the zoo just a few blocks down.

  

A few decades and one sign ordinance later, now it has a new roost inside the zoo.

Not a bad fate for Florida's famous toucan.  

Click here to view more "That's My World" images from all across the world.

Stream versus culvert

It’s official: spring is here.

That’s south Florida’s low water season,
But it’s high-water season “up north” on the continent!

Here’s a video clip – sent to me by e-mail – of a catastrophic culvert collapse somewhere in the heart of the north country’s springtime peak.

Does the old analogy about a tree falling in the woods also apply to a tree falling into a stream and then being sucked into an under-designed culvert?

Had it not been filmed I would say "yes."

And even if no one saw (or filmed) it happening, there’s probably a hydrologic monitoring station downstream to prove it (assuming the gage didn’t get washed away in the flood)!  My point is that if you didn’t see this happen for yourself with your own eyes, it would be hard to imagine the height and force of the freshet that caused it … even if you arrived just a few hours after the collapse.

The footage makes me second guess my bias toward “garden-variety” seasonal peaks. Sure, they are important, but it’s often the 25, 50, and 100 year events that are the big morphological “movers and shakers" of the riparian corridor – in this case collapsing a culvert, but in other cases, reshaping sand bars or bypassing oxbows.

What’s the saying about the majority of road accidents occurring close to home?

The same applies to our water ways.

No matter how familiar we think we are with a nearby water body – even down at our favorite creek – when waters rise high and run strong, take a step back and use the precautionary principle. 

Winter ends ... what winter?

So ends another winter in Naples.


Having immersed myself for the past decade in the verisimilitudes of Florida’s balmy climate, I can say with great certitude that the “coldest winter I’ve ever spent (in the past 10 years) was this past summer, when we vacationed in Belgium!”

That’s an adaptation of Mark Twain’s famous quote on San Francisco summers.

But it works equally well for summer sojourns to Belgium, especially if your visiting from Florida.

I was in long pants for two weeks straight on that trip, and layering a sweater with a water-proof jacket to keep dry and warm in the damp summer rains.



What’s the toughest decision a Belgian faces each day?

That would be what to wear!

Winter, summer, fall, and spring are less seasonal shifts than weather conditions you're likely to encounter in the Five Day Forecast.



Compare that to winter living on the south Florida peninsula.

Except for Florida’s deepest cold winter snaps (for arguments sake, lets say about a half dozen days), It’s the same old decision every day:


Shorts!



Here’s exclusive video in the High Fens (Hautes Fagnes) ...  



sometimes called the Everglades of Belgium.

Source of the swamp river

Here's a couple views of Turner River, on the water and from the air.

The top photo shows the source of the swamp river -- it's headwater pools -- looking south. I wish I could report a more extravagant name, but we just know them as Turner River headwater pools.

The collage shows the hydrologic monitoring station we use to monitor river stage, in collaboration with the South Florida Water Management District. Below the station is a spring photo of the dried down headwater channel, making it seasonally unnavigable.



The photo on bottom right of the collage reveals the reason you cannot canoe the river (at least it's full length) during peak water season: the mangrove tunnels fill up too high with water. 

On the bottom left is a photo taken at Three Corners. It's the water junction where the old Turner River Canal, now filled in, meets up with the restored river channel.

The last photo shows an aerial view of Three Corners, looking downstream.  

(The canal is on the left and the river on the right.)  

It's a turning point in the river: upstream of it lies the freshwater swamp reach of the river, and downstream is a maze of mangrove tunnels and pools before emptying out into the estuarine channel and Chokoloskee Bay.

Goldilocks waterway

How does the Goldilocks principle apply to Turner River?



Water stage has to be “just right” to canoe its full 9-mile length (from its swamp forest pools to Chokolosee Island.

If it’s "too high" the mangrove tunnels go underwater.

If it’s "too low" the channel becomes too shallow.


Either one will prevent you from making a paddle of it.

That makes November through January your best bet for running the full river, although parts of October and February are also in "just right" window most years.


Where’s the Turner River today?

I'm sad to report that just a few weeks back (toward the end of February), it dropped into “too low” territory.

But no worries, it should bounce back into “just right” territory with the onset of the summer rains in June … at least hydrologically speaking that is.

Regardless, your best bet is to take a rain check until the fall.

Why’s that?

In a word (spelled out letter by letter):

M-O-S-Q-U-I-T-O-E-S!

Meteorologic fudge factor?

I’m arduous about updating my rainfall data sets.

Each week, come rain or shine in south Florida – and we’ve been having a lot of shine recently – I take out hammer and chisel and tend my rainfall data sets.

Of course, these past few months of “all shine” has simplified my match considerably, as zero plus any number is that number. But still, zero is still a number (at least the last time I checked), so those data sets still need tending to. 

And did I mention I love “simple math!”


This is the time of year that we have to remind ourselves that “zero” only applies to the stuff falling out of the sky, not the stuff rising up into it.

I’m talking about evaporation and – now that the plants are in play – also transpiration.

We commonly combine them into a single term: evapotranspiration.


Evapotranspiration is the “black matter” of south Florida’s water budget. It accounts for a full half of our atmospheric water pie, but for a variety of reasons (one of which is that it’s invisible, another one of which it is fairly constant, and a third of which it doesn’t get you wet), we tend to forget about it.

Everybody remembers a Big Rain Day.

But nobody’s walking around recalling humungous evaporation events that sucked up into the sky like “cats and dogs!”



Why do I call it “black matter?”

It is a fitting analogy because like it’s celestial cousin, it wasn’t “discovered” in the true definition of the word, but rather invented (or calculated) as a sort of mathematical “fudge factor” in order to get their equations to work … and explain otherwise baffling galactic movements that didn’t make sense without it’s inclusion.



Does that mean evapotranspiration is a “fudge factor?”

You can’t see it, it’s difficult to measure, and – like “black matter” – we can’t solve our water budget equations without it, and even more tellingly, we can’t explain the recent unidirectional movement of our water surfaces without it:

Namely, water stage is dropping (because liquid water is vaporizing and rising).

But make no doubt, it exists … as sure as the sun is shining … (actually, because the sun is shining)!


Expect the drop in water stage to speed up now that it’s heating up – and even though the water table has dropped in may places into the top of the aquifer.

Shallow ground water can hide from the sun ... but it can’t hide from the roots.

It’s not called evapotranspiration for nothing.