Jelly fish sting

My then very special friend (now wife) arrived at my door in a panic.

“I’ve been bitten by a sting ray!” she exclaimed. “You have to take me to the hospital right now before the poison gets to my heart.”




Soon enough we were there. Not long thereafter we got the news:

“A jelly fish sting.”



Fast forward 10 years later, at the same beach, this time sting rays are lapping up at the shore.

“Probably not a good idea to go swimming,” I thought.



Turns out I was wrong.

Beach patrol gave me the news: “They are just cownose rays, not sting rays, foraging in the shallows. It’s perfectly safe to go swimming.”

And so we did without incident.



A week later, at the same beach, the coast was clear: No rays!

But we got stung anyhow.


You guessed it:

A jelly fish!

afternoon showers south of Tamiami Trail

near Port of the Islands

Tropical moisture game

Where’s all the tropical moisture gone?

In a word: Atlanta.



The “record-setting” – or rather, historic – torrential rains rose up from the topics into a mid-latitude low … and then stalled.

The result was upwards of 20 inches in spots and a wide multi-state swath of 8-10 inches over a two week period. All that rain had no place to go, causing flooding outside traditional flood plains, over running sewage plants, and churning waters brown.



Not only is the two-year drought is a distant memory, it’s a nostalgic one at that:

Water restrictions almost seem benign in comparison.



How does south Florida compare?

The conventional wisdom is that south Florida needs tropical moisture in early Fall to make its wet season complete.

Despite the lack of those storms, it’s been a very soggy September throughout much of south Florida’s western corner (in Collier County).


Picayune Forest has topped the charts with upwards of 12 inches so far for the month, and, for the first time all summer, waters have risen over the spillway at Henderson Creek (see post below).

That’s about the best indicator in western Collier County that “peak water” season has arrived.

(When I stopped to take a photo I was also told its good fishing!)


Other parts of south Florida have been dry in comparison.

September rains have been scarce across much of the east coast (from Jacksonville to Vero), and Lake Okeechobee, poised early in the year for a year of big releases, has held steady a few inches below 15 ft.

It’s only recorded 4 inches for the month.

Tropical moisture has a way of making winners and losers in the fall weather "game."

It’s just as hard to tell which is which.

steady September rains has water flowing
over the Henderson Creek spillway

Four signs of fall

When does fall start in south Florida?


Continentally speaking, Labor Day is the tradition.

Celestially speaking, it’s the Autumnal Equinox – September 22nd

But those milestones don’t do much to budge the thermometer south of Okeechobee. Daytime highs still hover around 90º F and nighttime lows in the 70s through September,

In other words, still summer!


Rest assured, south Florida is inexorably spinning towards its “Big Four” fall milestones.

The first is the night-time drop of the mercury below 70. That will happen in early to mid October.

When it does, the south peninsular rain machine shuts down.



The second is the night-time drop of the mercury below 60º F.

That will happen at first by chance, like a gift from the gods, in the form of our first “fall” cold front. It’s a long expected event, met with great euphoria from coast to coast, and usually only short lived (a day or two), but it’s a sign of things to come:

By mid November average daily night-time temperatures consistently drops below the 60º F line,


At least they do in Naples.

(Sorry Miami, you’re average daily night-time lows stay above 60 all year … thanks to the nearby Gulf Stream.)


The third milestone is the "official" end of hurricane season. That happens November 30th,


Right around that time is when we hit the fourth milestone – and “unofficial” finish line – of fall:

Cypress trees finally lose their needles.


That’s as sure a sign as there is that winter is upon us, Florida style.

swamp voyage

"Deep" swamp

If you want to find the “tallest” cypress, you’ve got to be willing to walk “deep” into the swamp.



By “deep” I don’t necessarily mean “far,”

What I mean is “deep.”



The pools of water surrounding the cypress are not as deep as they are tall,

Although this photo may give that illusion.



You’ll get plenty wet for sure – and may chose to relocate your wallet in your shirt pocket – or just select the more cosmopolitan alternative:

Mosey down a meandering boardwalk instead.




Either way, when you stand beside them, dwarfed by their tall canopy, and look up:

You’ll be transported back into “deep” time.




The old growth cypress that were left standing, (those couple of stands and stranglers that by chance or good will were lucky enough to avoid the axe), date back a couple hundred years.



Now that’s "deep" swamp.

stork eye view

Flight of the wood stork

Wood storks are charismatic wading birds.
(see Naples News article)


They glide through the sky with unmistakable grace and when you see them from a distance wading in the water they have a royal look.

But seeing the up in really close view is a bit of shock (particularly for the first time): They have no feathers on their head or neck.

They look prehistoric.



But you’re unlikely to see them at all when they hit the thermals.

Hitching a ride on the high altitude currents propel them a few thousand feet in the air, on which they soar for miles.


This helicopter tour isn’t quite that high – only 500 ft.

But for a moment I felt "stork like."
Those thermals give a great view to a pretty good looking bird …

Just not close up.

Fakahatchee flows

Engineering in reverse

Here's a couple of "before" and "after" photographs of Prairie Canal,

Or rather, what used to be a canal.



Now it's series of pools, filled in between by the native rock originally excavated from the canal (in the 1960s) to build giant grid of roads in the woods.

It took fifty years, but the canal finally got its rocks back!

Think of it as "reverse engineering" to keep the water in Picayune Forest and Fakahatchee Strand where nature always intended it to be,



Instead of out to tide where it was flowing.



These photos are not "before" and "after" glimpes of the restoration, but rather of the water cycle at one of those new pools.



The top photos were taken on the coldest day (February 2, 2009) of last winter's dry season. (And no the water did not freeze!)

The bottom ones were taken last week in what appears to be the wet season peak.

winter outlook

up north?

Winter forecast revealed

Your always "reliable" Farmer’s Almanac is now available.

(Hurry while supplies last!)


The reason I say reliable is that it’s been published now for over 100 years.

Whether or not it’s accurate, I have no idea.


This year’s almanac is in conflict with scientific consensus:

It’s calling for a frigid winter across the Midwest which, at least in part, is based at least on the sunspot cycle.

Outside the bounds of the Almanac, the El Nino is expected to induce mild winter weather.



If climate is what we expect, and weather is what we get (and we admit it might change by the moment),

Why is it that a new meteorologist on TV gets hammered for missing a couple rain drops on the daily forecast, but the Almanac gets a free ride for miscalling an entire winter?


First, one hundred years of service comes with its benefits.

Two, it’s a "wait and see" as always.

And three, does anybody ever go back and check any way?


I will for one, come spring!

engineered flows

Pulsed waters

Gates will give you water, but just as easily they will shut it out.

There’s no better example than the Everglades S-11s.


Last year the S-11s delivered around 900,000 acre feet along the upper reaches of Florida’s River of Grass.

This year’s total is 500,000 acre feet (so far), with about a month of flows to go.


It’s a balance of sorts:

The wetland water table is already too high to the south, so all things being equal, there’s a desire not to send more. To the north water is needed keep the wetlands hydrated and the shallow water table recharged for the long dry season to come.


The result is a distinctly unnatural flow regime of extended “no flow” dry spells punctuated by flashy “peak flow” releases.

That makes the “River of Grass” bigger than a creek (nearby Fisheating Creek averages 270,000 acre feet per year) but unmistakably engineered.


You’d never know it deep in its interior.

table water

World's biggest drink

As crowded as it seems in Florida, especially “in season” (during the winter) and along the coast,

I’m always shocked by the infinite remoteness of the Everglades.



It’s that duality that makes me wonder:

Could we put the entire world population on top of Lake Okeechobee’s 143-mile long levee and all enjoy a “cup” of water in harmony?

And if so, exactly how much water would that be?

(For calculation purposes I assumed only 6 billion people, leaving the other 700 million at home to maintain essential services.)




Turns out we couldn’t.

By my calculations we’d have to cram 8,000 people per linear foot of levee.

That’s not possible considering the levee is only 300 ft wide at its base, and only a few ten feet at its crest.



But let’s say we did, and simultaneously enjoyed a “cup” of water anyhow.

The one-time serving would drain 568 Olympic-sized swimming pools!



How about a “day’s worth” of water for the entire world?

If we awarded everyone the American standard: 100 gallons per day per person,

That would drain 168 Lake Okeechobee volumes (4 million acre feet) per year, or about two year’s worth of the Mississippi River.



Florida’s 18 million residents never seemed so small!

do not feed the alligators

All downhill from here?

The swamp cycle has reached its average annual high-water mark.

Over the past 20 years, the giant sheet of water that spreads across the swamp (which we call sheet flow because, well, it flows), tends to crest around late September.


Each year is different to be sure.

Some years rise higher (such as last year in the wake of Fay), others crest later (such as 1998’s early November arrival of a rain-heavy Mitch), other crest early but stay high all year (2005), others never quite materialize (2007), while some years save their fireworks, or in this case – water works – for last, tipping up into top flood stage in October.

The early falls of 1995, 1999, and 2005 were especially memorable in that regard.


Late season cyclones (of September and October) were in play in each of those years.

Does that mean that this year’s storm-scarce tropics spells a gradual decline to swamp stage from here on out?


As memorable as the big tropical “hits” can be,

The “near misses” can be just as disruptive in the dry direction by “throwing a monkey wrench in the works” of the normal atmospheric stew that, this time of year, if left unfettered, can produce the “magnum opus” of our summer rain showers.


These are not your “garden variety” isolated cumulonimbus showers of the early summer – the ones that crop up here and there and then dissipate just as quickly.

These are your regional-scale squall lines of convergent air masses that smash together mid peninsula, then stalk their way west on the wings of the prevailing easterlies, snuffing out blue sky and throwing down buckets of crackling rain on anything and everything in their broad path.


I charted 4 inches of rain at my house in Naples this weekend. Most of it fell in an hours time or two.

It was as big as a “local grown” meteorological monster can get.

But their days are numbered:



It’s also the wet season’s last hurrah.

The peninsula’s rain machine of convectional and convergence storms shuts down in early October (a little later on the East Coast).



So even though I wouldn’t count October out just yet (tropical storm wise), nor preclude the chance of a soggy early winter from the El Nino, (not to mention it's raining outside my door as I type) --

The fall equinox has arrived (September 22nd):

And along with it, the average high-water mark of the year.




It could be downhill from here.

rising wave at Naples Beach

Saltwater moon

It’s peak water season in the Everglades, and not surprisingly, the streets of Miami have flooded.

Only it has nothing to do with rainfall (or malfunctioning freshwater gates).


This one we can blame on lunar cycles.

The moon is at its closest point to the earth – called its perigee.

That swelled seas an additional foot higher than normal near Miami. (source)


It happens every fall like clockwork,

And as fate would have it, just in time for peak hurricane season.

(Talk about the dreaded double whammy!)


You may have read the report of the higher than normal tides (by as much as 2 feet) along the entire East Coast this summer.

That was caused by a slow-down in the Gulf Stream current and early onset of autumnal northeast winds in the north Atlantic. (source)


No one’s really sure what made the Gulf Stream so sluggish.

I’m guessing we probably can’t blame this one on the moon.

flowing south