Free flow (just add rain)

Usually we have to wait until August to see sheetflow.

But this year it's already in peak form in June.

The top graph shows the current discharge rate (4,000 cfs) under the Big Cypress National Preserve portion of the Tamiami Trail.  Thanks to abundant spring rain and a stormy last week, sheetflow is up at peak fall levels, unusual for this early in the wet season.  The bottom chart shows annual discharge volume from 1964 to present.  Over a million acre feet discharged under the Trail in 2005, but since then the annual totals have been half that (or even less).  

The swamp's secret recipe is rain and an absence of gates,

The abundance of the latter in the Everglades which are still closed.