The dry season is off to a fast start,
Water levels dropped through the entire month of October.
 |
| The above hydrograph displays water depth in the middle of the typical cypress dome in Big Cypress Nat’l Preserve from 2013 to present. The blue line shows current water levels. The dotted white line shows the long-term average water depth, as calculated from 1993 to present. The horizontal color coding shows the major landscape types and the changes in shading show the statistical range and thresholds. Point of interest: Last year’s drought was short lived but deep. How far down will the water table drop this spring? |
But the big picture is that the swamp is still wet. The water table is currently 2 feet above where it normally bottoms out each spring in mid May and a few inches below the long-term average for early November. That means the cypress domes and strands are still fairly full of water, enough to get your socks wet anyway.
It isn’t until March that domes typically start to dry down.
And even then they remain squishy unless we have a deep spring drought.
