Hydrologic resolutions on hold!

New Year’s has never been a big deal for me.

In part that’s because the water year is already three months old.

But that only applies up on the Continent and in North Florida. All the streams and rivers from the Suwannee on up peak in spring and recede to a low water ebb in fall, thus making October 1st a convenient and official date to commence with counting annual flow totals anew.

Here in south Florida, however, October occurs at the tip top of the swamp's high water arc. As for January 1st it falls square in the middle of our winter dry season. I know what you’re thinking – Does Naples even have a winter? As a season, no, but we do have impact freezes, which usually last a few hours, but leave us talking about them for years. But that’s beside the point.


Let it be known that I am one hundred percent in approval of the idea of cleaning the slate, simplifying and starting anew wherever you are despite January 1st not being a perfect south Florida hydrological fit and despite me not being a late owl (other than listening to an obligatory orchestral rendition of Auld Lang Syne). I’m the type that more or less wakes up in the morning feeling no different than the next … other than a vague but palpable sensation of being incredibly wiser, although that only kicks in after my second cup of coffee which is also my last unless I have a third in the afternoon because it’s a holiday.

When does the new water year start in the swamp?

That would be June 1st with the start of the summer rains.


Or in other words, six more months to put my resolutions on hold.

In the labyrinth

Looking towards the Gulf of Mexico at low tide:
Clam Pass on right and sand-exposed tidal flat on left

Endless detours at dead-end beach

Florida is one big endless beach,right?

Not this one, it dead ends at tidally-fed Clam Pass.

Looking back (south) from tip of dead end spit of sand
Clam Pass on left and gulf on the right

But that’s just where the fascination begins. The tides are naturally amplified here and the inlet is a great place to study them rushing in and draining out. If you’re an eight year old kid it’s a great place to get momentarily lost in the mangroves, and then just as suddenly refound:

“Okay, this trail comes out at the beach …”

“Hey, how about this one?”

Trail to Clam Pass

That makes Clam Pass endless in its own way.

Boardwalk at Clam Pass

You can take a tram ride through the mangroves to the beach, or just walk

Conference-style coffee cake

Conferences are invigorating, right?

Try sitting through a dozen of these in a dark room and you may change your mind.



Of course you can’t beat the free coffee and break snacks between sessions. The company isn’t usually that bad either, although I do often find myself saying the same thing over and over (and over).

The most maddening aspect of conferences isn’t the boredom – although who can’t relate to that tricky dilemma of being caught in the front row of a tedious talk that never quite lived up to its title (shame on the presenter!) – but rather my inability to attend every overlapping talk in the conflicting time schedules of the “too many to count” concurrent sessions, simultaneously happening all at once.

Naples Grand Beach Resort, right next to Clam Pass

Then there’s my inability to find the “Venetian” Room – “Oh, that one’s upstairs on the other side of the Grand Pavillion, you know, right across from the Poinciana Room”– and most devastating of all: to pull the nozzle on the shiny silver seraph only to discover its coffee has run dry.

That’s when I grab an extra piece of cake as consolation.

Southeast descends into drought

Click on image to find out more

Meteorologic mirror doesn't lie

Come drought or flood or something in between ...

This is the time of year we can all look in the meteorologic mirror and pretty much say the same thing:

NOAA's national outlook of what we got (in inches)

Something along the lines of:

"One year wiser and another year of rain in the books."

Map showing deviation from normal (in inches)

And also (and exactly) "one year older," although the precipitation varies from year to year and depending on where you live.

Heading south at 21 feet high

Littoral lake resolutions

Is Lake Trafford the Okeechobee of southwest Florida?

Lake Trafford's perimeter airboat trail

Consider its stage:

Trafford is perched up at 20 feet above sea level. That’s the same elevation that Okeechobee used to be when it overflowed its banks and filtered south into the Everglades. That doesn’t happen anymore because of land subsidence and the levee that surrounds it and water management rules that keep the water down. Lake Okeechobee is currently at around 12 feet above sea levels. That’s ten feet below where it used to rise when served as the headwater source for the River of Grass.


Does Trafford overflow its banks too?

To the south it is connected to Camp Keais Strand and Corkscrew to the east which, in the neighborhood of 21 or 22 feet above sea level, it forms a single water surface with; but it would be incorrect to say it “flows” into them in the same way that Lake Okeechobee’s waters slid south into the Glades.

Now consider the water quality:

Lake Trafford was recently restored in the form of eliminating a layer of decades-old benthic muck that had been fouling its waters in the form of high nutrients and chronic algal blooms. Lake Okeechobee, on the other hand, remains twenty times over desired water quality goals.

Containment area where the benthic muck was siphoned

Thus, the question isn’t if Trafford resembles Okeechobee, but how to remake Okeechobee like Lake Trafford has been restored anew.

Sounds like a big but good New Year’s Resolution to me.

Water cycle resolutions

Make the water a New Year's resolution

Atmospheric amplification

Add a High to a Low and it cancels each out, right?

Try amplify (i.e., wind) instead, plus getting things (i.e., arctic air) really mixed up.

As illustrated in the diagram above, a clockwise-spinning High and counter-clockwise spinning Low can set the stage for pumping polar air quickly and deeply into the south.


It’s been an unusually cold December for Florida.

This last one sort of ices the cake. (article)

By air

Air-born wind surfer at Naples Beach

Sleigh of the Everglades

What is the best ways to travel in Florida?

Some would say by "air" while others would say by "boat."

But in the Everglades they would probably say the airboat instead.

Answer: Naples Depot

Stocking stuffer puzzler

There aren’t many similarities in these two photos …

Other than they are of the same exact spot.

The one above is from 2010 and the one below is from sometime in the 1940s.

Can you find the hidden clue that gives it away?

More Dahoon Holly?

Now I'm not sure ...

Naughty or nice?

Has Brazillian Pepper intruded this deep into the swamp?

No, that's just Dahoon Holly ...

A native.


The red berries just sort of look the same.

Silent swamp

Along the boardwalk at Corkscrew Swamp

Pre-season rankings, already?

This is worse than pre-season college football polls.

Here we are barely out of 2010 and already they're making the call for 2011.



I can only assume it has something to do with "Insurance" Futures.

Or in other words, don't bet on another active year with no landfalls on the continental US next year.


Hindsight of course is 20/20.

Above is a 5-minute long NOAA video of the 2010 Hurricane Season as seen from the relative safety of a satellite. From that high up they almost look peaceful! And it's not all that different from the the view I remember seeing when my dad took me to watch the Baltimore Colts play the Buffalo Bills at Memorial Stadium. We sat so high up in the bleachers that I had vertigo looking down at the field which, through a pair of binoculars borrowed by a man behind us, I was shocked to see it inhabited by football players and not ants. But it wasn't until three years later that the Category Five hit: That's when the Colts skipped out of town to Indianapolis on a snowy eve ... never to return.

Snow's never been the same to me since.

Florida's record dry October

Click here to read more

"Solstice-skipping" winter equinox

Another “snowless” winter solstice in south Florida,

But last week’s cold front did bring us some rain!

Shortened winter days cause the cypress to lose their needles

That was good enough to give us a good half inch south of the Lake.

(Click here to view a basin-specific rainfall chart for your area.)


South Florida averages 13 inches of rainfall during its 6-month dry season, as counted from the start of November through April. Two winters ago was extremely dry – only 4 inches fell all dry season long – compared to last year which was exceedingly (and consistently) rainy with 21 inches.

So far this year, we’ve received around 2 inches.

Here's a Palm Beach Post article that elaborates on the state of our drought.


But don’t forget about our record-setting dry October.

That got the dry season recession off to an unusually early start.

Could we be in for a repeat of two winters ago?

How early is early?

It’s only mid December and already swamp stage is dropped down into “spring equinox” form, or almost:

Typically, we don’t see waters this low into the cypress until February or March.

Florida sun mets Arctic ice

Melting well underway at 7:30 am

Polar eclipse of the sun

It didn’t freeze in Naples …

At least not at the airport where it’s close to the coast.

But it did drop below 40° F on three consecutive nights. The middle of the three dropped down to 36° F, which at my house a few miles inland was cold enough to make the small dish of water I set out ice up.


Caveat:

I set the dish out on top on the cold-conducting metal of the roof of my car. Yes, that's cheating but at least I got my ice!

Two days later the midday high rose to 79° F.

That’s typical Florida-style winter for you:
“Here today, gone tomorrow.”


And by the way, that ice completely melted before 9 o’clock.

Gulls of winter

Wintery waves wash up on Naples Beach, not to far from Palm Cottage

Tamiami Tabby

Here’s a chunk of naturally-solidified marine sediment from the shallowly submerged Tamaimi Formation, right?

That was my first guess, too.

Turns out this hunk of rock is manmade:

It’s called Tamiami Tabby instead.


The original settlers of Naples didn’t have any cement mills, but with plenty of sand and water and shells they were pretty well set. Mix them together in a broth over the high heat of burning buttonwood, then let it dry: Tabby is what you got.

Not as strong as modern cement, but good enough:

They used it to build the Palm Cottage – Naples oldest house – which, just a few blocks from Naples Pier, is still standing.


Presumably this particular chunk wasn’t a critical structural stone.

Door to Palm Cottage

Not too far from Naples Pier

Bounty at the beach

As most beachcombers are aware:
Big waves bring bounty to the beach.

Just don’t plan on it translating into big bucks!

A good beachcomber always keeps a careful eye

In this instance I found a scrap of sponge.

It wasn’t notable in any particular way other than for the fact that it’s something on this beach I don’t usually see. I also picked out of the sand a big shard of thick shell that looked as if it came from a conch and was smooth on the underside.  Another good find!


But one’s man’s garbage is another man’s gold:

I kept them both as mementos from a good walk along the shore.

"Surf worthy" gulf

As seen near Naples Pier

When cold air dips down

Cold fronts bring us crisp blue air,

But often on the front edge is a squall line of clouds.

Clouds preceding the cold, as seen along Tamiami Trail looking north

Here's a narrated video that sort of explains:

Not your typical RV

All sorts of vehicles tour the Tamiami Trail come winter

Winter "thirsty" season

Winter may be our dry season,

But it’s also our thirsty season as well.

Northern tourist season has begun

People “winter” (the verb) in Naples to escape “winter” (the noun) of the cold continental North.

More people means more water usage …

Or in other words, ground water pumping is on the rise.


Where does all that water go?

I calculated my household usage to be around six 32’long x 15’ wide x 3.5’ long swimming pools per year. The catch is I only drink about six 42.5 gallon barrels of it per year. (And usually not all at once!) The rest gets used to wash the dishes and clothes, in the bathrooms, watering the lawn and, yes, occasionally refilling our 32’ long x 15’ wide x 3.5’ deep swimming pool.

Why refill the pool when we don't swim in it all winter long?

If water drops below the skimmer the pump starts sucking in air (and before you know it the motor burns out).

Could the same thing happen to our aquifer if we pump too much?


Here’s some water conservation tips just in case.

Swamp hydraulics

Under the boardwalk at Freedom Park

Swamp spigot runs dry

The Everglades is renowned for its water control gates …

Does that mean the swamp equivalent is spigots under its boardwalks instead?

I tried to turn it, but the main line was shut off

Hardly, the Big Cypress is 100 percent dependent on rain, as shown on top of the graph below as the “ladder to the sky.” On the bottom is a hydrograph showing current water depth on the land which like to think of as the “step stool to the swamp” because the difference between drought and flood stage is only three feet.


The swamps are as low as we’ve seen them this early in the dry season.

It’s only December and waters have already dropped shin deep on the cypress knees. That means that most of the swamp is dry, although in the shade of the tall cypress and closed canopy of the pond apple forests you’ll still find some puddles of water hanging on.

Hydrograph of rainfall (top) and water depth (bottom) over the past two years

The blue-coded area on the map below shows a rough approximation of the swamp’s water surface as it rises through the summer wet season and drops through the winter dry season. Usually by spring most of the swamp is dry (color coded in tan).


What’s the cause of this year’s rapid drying trend?

An early cold front cut our wet season short, followed by a tropical no-show to the Florida peninsula (despite an active year) an now the emergence of a drought-amplifying La Niña signal from the Equatorial Pacific –

Over the past three months the preserve has recorded less than 3 inches of rain (compared to a 20 inch average). But lack of rain isn’t the whole story: Our recent onslaught of North Winds desiccate the landscape and crank up the volume on evaporative losses.

Watch the water cycle go:
Blue is water and tan is dry land

In summary …

Yes, the "great spigot in the sky" has run dry.

It’s been shut tight for the past three months and it won’t be for another five months, possibly six, before it turns back on.


That gives our hydrograph quite a far ways still to fall.

Crooked Culvert

Down on Loop Road about half way

Waterless night showers

We finally got some showers last night ...

Just not the kind that bring rain.

The Geminids meteor shower was on display Monday night, but you had to be away from light pollution to see them. Not only is Big Cypress Nat'l Preserve a big slab of premier swamp real estate, its a great place to see the night sky.


Halfway between either coast ...

It's about as pitch black as it gets.

Birds and beach

Two cold nights on the beach for the birds

S-12s close early

If we had a window, we’d shut it.

But we don’t so we let all that cold air run though.

S-12D, the biggest and longest flowing of the four gates, closed late last week

With water management, on the other hand, we have an option.

Gates can be operated to open and close exactly when and to what degree we want them. In the case of the S12s – the main inflow into Everglades Nat’l Park – the gates are closing early this winter dry season. (Only three times in the past twenty years have they closed this early, and never before i.e., November).

Of course it has nothing to do with the winter cold (air) and everything to do with the dry season’s lack of rain combined with low wetland water levels in upstream Water Conservation Area 3.

This hydrograph shows discharge in cubic feet per second (top) and annual discharge volume for all the S12s in millions of acre feet.  By the way, Lake Okeechobee holds about 4 million acre feet at 15 ft.

Gatekeepers go by hydrographs which, in this case (below), has dropped squarely into Zone E. That plus the long winter drought ahead puts the priority on saving what water’s still left …

This hydrograph jams a lot on one page:
water depth, elevation, historical stats, habitat types, and regulatory zones. 

The summer rains never felt so far away.

(That’s because of the cold!)