Only Show in Swampville

Sheetflow is a seasonal regime,

And rain dependent, right?

Each wet season we can count on the swamp preserve’s sheetflow rising up above a thousand cubic feet per second, as measured by the U.S. Geological Survey at Tamiami Trail. Normally that lasts for a good four months or so (although only two this year - see above) before it dwindles down to close to nothing for most of the winter dry season and into the spring.

Compare that to spring flow "up peninsula,"
It doesn’t rise wildly, but nor does it fall …

Groundwater is as steady a hydrologic producer as we have on the peninsula.

Entrance to Silver Springs near Ocala

Were the swamps ever fed by springs?

The Peace River famously was – by Kissengen Spring, which dried up long ago due to overpumping the aquifer below. The glades are known to have depended on overflow from Lake Okeechobee, but that was surface water, not from the ground, right?

The missing ingredient here is what you can no longer see for the reason that it’s no longer there: Or in other words, the sawgrass plain that once upon a time lay immediately south. It stayed super-saturated like a soaking wet sponge which, font-like, slow-dripped water south into the deep water sloughs and interconnected swamp even after the skies ran dry.

Of course rain was always the number one producer …

Only now it’s the Only Show in Swampville.

Clouds rise as needles fall

Camel's hump of the continental creek

Here’s a typical hydrograph for a continental stream …

In this case for the East Branch of the Swift River near Hardwick, Massachusetts.

River flow peaks in March and April in unison with the spring thaw and the summer leafout not yet taking root. When it does the river responds with a steady downward slump we hydrologist call the “baseflow recession” which lasts through the summer and into early fall which – in this case by September – sees river flow drop off an order of magnitude (ten times lower) from its spring peak.

From there waters start to rise again, through the fall, but then come the dead of winter flow strangely plateaus before climbing the camel’s hump onto the peak of the spring thaw. I wonder what’s behind that winter plateau: Could it be the artifact of a deep freeze that puts the breaks on downward percolation until melting begins?


I’ll have to check with some New England hydrologists to find out more.

(First thing they'll probably tell me is they don't have any camels!)

North wind approaches!

Forecast map courtesy of NOAA

Dry (and damp) season?

Summer’s over, so nobody’s complaining …
But it’s been a solid month now since we’ve gotten a good cold front:

They keep stalling “up peninsula” near Orlando.

That’s great if you’re in Disney World but a bummer for anyone south of Okeechobee hankering for a stout north wind. The temperature chart shown above is a bit deceiving. It gives the illusion that summers in Florida are short in comparison to winter – they’re not – plus it highlights the fact that temperatures never (ever) rise above the 100 degree mark.

Of course, “it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity” in Florida, but that’s a saying that usually applies to summer. Our winters are supposed to be milder and drier in comparison.

Dry season can be damp

Except when those fronts stall …

That’s when it turns “mild and damp” with a good dose of morning fog.


At least it’s not summer!

Looking down

1,000 feet over the Big Cypress, looking south over Loop Road

"Into the Water"

Readers of the “Into the Wild” everywhere …

This hydrograph is for you.

It shows the fateful "fall and rise" of the Talkeenta River in Alaska where Chris McCandless – also known as Alex Supertramp and eulogized with great poignancy by Jon Krakauer – crossed the river but couldn’t cross back.

The reason?


For one, the protagonist was a Continentaller. He probably assumed that the river peaked in spring and slowly ebbed through the summer, only to bottom out in fall. But Alaskan streams are snow-melt fed. That gives them a trademark summer peak of roaring and frigid water (as the author points out and that the protagonist was astonished to see) which pumps up the flow volume “nine or ten times” above the baseflow recession of the still frozen spring he crossed.

What shocks me about the hydrograph is its tightness: Unlike precipitation fed rivers whose hydrographs are “spiked” with rain storms and variable depending on seasonal and annual rain patterns, snow melt is a steady and very predictable producer. As August progressed, Alex noticed a chill in the air and rapidly declining daylight hours, or in other words – an end of Alaskan summer, and so with it, a rapid recession of the ephemeral raging river back down to its creek-like winter state.

Mid latitudinal continental streams like this one recede through the summer

This book haunts at many levels:

Who in their youth was not a bit rebellious and equally touched by a Utopian disgust of a world gone wrong which, with vision and conviction, we set ourselves out towards restoring, if not in whole then only (and ultimately) as some small but significant vindication of who we ourselves aim to be? I too am on a search of sorts for a perfect hydrologic world – of which I attempt to plot with scientific rigor and aesthetic flair – and which in great fervor, with said hydrograph in hand, I set out in mind and body to those distant shores to touch whatever of its silky waters I may find and to splash its wetness on my face (or alternatively just take a few photographs instead).

Usually I’m not too far from a U.S. Geological gauging station when I do (which is where I got the data to plot the hydrograph up top). Had only Alex Supertramp known the same (that’s a hint to read the book – I don’t want to give it away), he would be alive and well, although quixotically with the result that his story, as retold by Jon Krakauer, may have never been born.

As a reader, “Into the Wild” leaves me with so many questions, among the top is which one he would have preferred.

Looking up

Old growth cypress at Big Cypress Bend Boardwalk

Hydrologic infinity

There's no mistaking the Big Cypress from the Everglades when you fly:

One is a vast forest.

Gator Hook Strand, looking northeast, in October 2010

And the other is an endless glade.

Water Conservation Area 3, looking southeast, also in October 2010

Put the two together and you're starring into hydrologic infinity. Here's a narrated video, filmed earlier this fall at the wet season peak, that shows you the view.

Orange Friday

Sunset in Ochopee, Florida near the banks of the Turner River

Not a bad day to be on a river

Is there any escape from Black Friday?

How about touring the Turner River instead.

If we use the hydrograph as a guide, it tells us that we are good to go. The green coded area means that river stage is just right – down from the summer high water mark that requires paddlers to lean back in their boats to fit through the mangrove tunnels but not yet too low that the channel runs dry (which is very tough paddling indeed). Bugs aren’t bad either, at least during the day, and as of yet the snow birds (aka tourists) haven’t been choking up the channel too bad.


That makes it a perfect day …

Except for some nuisance hydrilla in the headwater pools.

Headwater pools of Turner River, looking south (June 2007)

Still, better than being caught in traffic or waiting in line.

Front row seat

A hydrologic Thankgiving

Talk about piling even more on a loaded Thanksgiving Day plate!

Not two football games, but three?

Isn’t it true that so often we default to sports to define who we are as a community? And isn’t it so that in some mystical sense our sports do bring us together in one stadium – under one roof, or in the open air as it may be – at Miami Dolphin’s home turf, or Sun Life Stadium as it is so named – to root on that intangible yet tribally ingrained entity known as “our side?”

The best seat in the house is of course in your own house in front of the TV. Who wants to fight through traffic to see from 200 feet away (if you’re lucky) what you can view in the high definition comfort of your own living room with super slow motion, instant replay and camera angles galore delight?


But why not cheer for our watersheds instead?

And I don’t mean sitting in front of the TV to do so. There’s any number of trails, water ways, overlooks, and country corridors ready and waiting for us to see and experience them first hand. After all, it’s our watersheds which define us as a community most. And the waters that run through them in the form of the water cycle are its pulse.

Do you see the cypress stadium?

With that in mind, I would like to formally propose that we replace the Sports Page with the Hydrology Page in all our local newspapers … effective each year after the end of football season.

Happy Thanksgiving and enjoy the games!

Polite gator with big appetite

Anhinga on a branch and alligator below at H.P. Williams Wayside

Florida "air stove"

Time to throw another log on the wood stove, right?

Thanksgiving day is here.

Not if you live in Naples, Florida …

More than likely we’ll have the air conditioning on instead. Especially this year: the forecast is calling for a daytime high in the mid 80s and a nighttime low in the 60s.

Or in other words,

No snow (darn)!

"Cypress needle" stage

17 feet above sea level 

Thanksgiving swamp

Corkscrew swamp famously escaped the saw …
That means its giants have roots reaching hundreds of years down.

(And, yes, they are tall too!)

But did its hydrograph also remain similarly unscathed?

Here’s a comparison of hydrographs, color coded with regard to statistic categories (i.e., 0th, 10th, 33rd, 50th, 66th, 90th, and 100th percentile) and habitat types (i.e., dry season refugia, pond apple, tall cypress, marl prairie, and pinelands) for the fifteen year period of 1960-1975 and 1990-2005.

The hydrograph looks more or less intact:

Seasonal trends of the summer wet and winter dry area easy to see.

However, decades ago (left) the swamp seemed to show a more predictable pattern: Yes, there were flood and drought seasons, but the darker band between the 33rd and 66th percentile is much tighter (on the left) than what’s seen on the modern day hydrograph (right). Particularly noticeable is the wider range of fluctuation and deeper drop of the modern day (right) spring drydown. Less obvious, but also present (if also counterintuitive, although also explainable), is the modern day’s higher wet-season hump.

What’s going on?

Climate could be in play. We’ve had some wet summers in that period (1995, 1999, and 2005) plus a big drought during 2000-2001. Also a factor is the landscape around Corkscrew which, unlike the sanctuary, and despite the great success of the Corkscrew Swamp Regional Ecosystem Watershed (CREW) initiative, conservation efforts have tended to focus on low-lying wetlands (i.e., in the adjacent Corkscrew Swamp Regional Ecosystem Watershed) whereas uplands have been converted into agriculture or urbanized.

All things being equal (meteorologically speaking), that leaves less land for the same amount of water; or in other words, higher peaks in the areas that still hold water and lower dry season drops due to the spatial loss of storage.

Still, this is the week to be thankful for what we’ve got and everyone over the years who did there part to make it happen.

The swamp has a way of reminding me that whenever I’m there.

Ruby Reds and one rogue apple

Do you see the rogue apple?

Pennsylvania oranges?

How do “Peninsularians” know that fall has arrived?

“Continentallers” send us down bushels of apples is how, pitifully assuming that we have none which is only partially true by merit of the culinary challenged swamp variety called the pond apple which plunk down in the water when they are ripe (not that you can eat them even then).

Pennsylvania Amish Staymen Winesap Apple (left)

How do “Continentallers” know that winter has finally settled in?

That’s about the same time us “Peninsularians” start sending boxes of neatly packed Florida oranges up north. Packed with Vitamin C and great for juicing, aficionados of that fine fruit probably wish it stayed winter all year long.

Sweet Florida Red Navel Orange

Of course south Florida’s winter is summery by Continental standards, so as a “Peninsularian” that’s easy to say.

"I wouldn't go that way"

"Better safe than sorry" plant

Virginia Creeper, right …

Poison ivy on the prowl

Or is it Poison Ivy instead?

While it’s easy enough to discern with close inspection – the former has five leaves and the latter only three – the shine on their vines from a glance is good enough for a second guess.

Virginia Creeper, I think (But don't touch it just to be safe!)

Or in other words …
Better safe than sorry.

Gate keepers

Swamp forest of fall

Ever have trouble seeing the forest from the trees,
In this case, actually, I mean the needles from the needle-free?

Here's a narrated video that explains.

Just a few more steps

Boardwalk at Audubon's Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary

Long trail of hydrologic data

Tamiami Trail is good for about a half million acre feet per year.

Not that the water originates from the Trail, nor is it tractor trailered across – rather, it flows under it, specifically at about 4 dozen bridges that underlie the three dozen miles of one-lane road that spans across the southern end of Big Cypress Nat’l Preserve.

Twice that total will you get you a Big Flow Year (1994-1995, 1999, and 2005) and anything less you can consider a drought. This year peaked at right around 3,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) in early September, but since then has steadily dropped to where it is now -- drier than normal for early November at only 200 cfs. (Click here to view full historical calendar.)

I consider it south Florida’s most scenic drive, if also an eclectic one at that.

On any given day you’ll see a hodge podge parade of tractor trailers en route, motorcycles on tour, RVs slowing down and swamp buggies heading in, commuters cruising from “coast to coast” waiting for a spot to pass and fisherman on the side ignoring it all as it whizzes by.

Best of all about the Trail is that it has its very own hydrograph …

How many roads can say that?

Font of the swamp?

End of hurricanes in sight!

Could a hurricane make landfall this late in the fall?

The storm season doesn’t “officially” end until November 31st.

But by this late in the year, with the summer “wet season” of afternoon rain showers now a good six weeks behind, for most of us the tropics are pretty much out of our minds.



Not that we should rule it out completely if we go by history as our guide.

Above is a historical calendar of hurricane-strength storms that made landfall in Florida over the past 110 years. Four of them (5 percent) made landfall after November 1st (albeit not very strong).  Below is an animated map showing the typical progression of storm paths throughout the six-month season.

My guess is that we don’t.

Here’s an article from the Miami Herald that summarizes the very active hurricane season of 2010 that strangely -- from a Florida perspective -- wasn’t.

Swamp vortex

Swamp waters slide south into dry season

Monsoons of the swamp?

Of course Florida doesn’t have a monsoon season …

Or does it?

After all, just like the American Southwest and similar to the Himalayan-hugging Indian peninsula, we too have a distinct cycle of summer showers and a dry winter between.

Why then do we go by the humdrumly named “wet season” while the two other get provocatively dubbed as a “monsoon season” instead?

Answer:

A low-level sea breeze feeds our summer downpours. It switches back and forth from a low-lying inland-blowing seas breeze by day to a coastward-blowing land breeze by night.

Once the upper atmospheric low sets in place over the Indian peninsula it rules the sky all summer long. Or in other words – both day and night – its sea breeze blows uninterrupted all summer long.

Non-monsoon worthy?

Florida's summer goes by the name "wet season,"
not the "monsoon season" like the American Southwest

Desert monsoons can't save day

When is 2 cubic feet per second (cfs) big?

In the Sonoran desert, on the San Pedro River,
just before the summer monsoons start.

Prior to the 1960s the river hardly ever dropped lower than that point. Compare that to this past decade where a river flow of under 2 cfs has become the norm.

What’s the cause?


Groundwater is being depleted in the underlying aquifer as a result of water supply pumping in the nearby town of Sierra Vista.

That steals the river’s vital baseflow.

The monsoons still reliably put water in the river, but even that seems to have changed. The norm from 1945 to 1970 was for river flow to peak in August at around 200 cfs. Over the most recent 25 years (1985-2010) the summer peak has dropped to 40 percent of that total.

At stake is one of the deserts most unique ecosystems – a perennially flowing riparian corridor – which from the top of the Huachuca Mountains, when you look down, you can see it like a thread thin line running from south to north across the desert floor. Up close it is a shaded oasis of running water and other worldly Cottonwood tree stands with leaves of shimmering green (in the summer) or brilliant yellow in the fall and which greets you like a sight for sore eyes among the endless rolling plain of heated up cactus that surround it and threaten, should the water someday disappear, to overtake it and turn it to sand.

Photo Source: Friends of the San Pedro River

As for now the river still flows –
Not as perennial as it once was, but not yet a wash either:

Somedays you enjoy what you have and forget about the future.