Double-Crested Cormorant

click on any image to enlarge

The first strong cold front of the season passed through and created quite a bit of wind. From these images it looks like we received a lot of rain, but the total rainfall was barely noticeable (.01", .25 mm).

Above: Lake Monroe on the St. Johns River in Central Florida. I was on the Northeast side of the lake.



Above: Looking out toward the town of Sanford, Florida it appears there is nothing in the lake standing up to the wind.



Above: A closer look at the end of the boat ramp (to the right) reveals a Double-Crested Cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus). These birds of the Phalacrocoracidae family often stand erect on rocks or logs with wings spread wide. Sometimes we'll see them flying in flocks like geese, but Cormorants are silent aside from an occasional pig-like grunt.



Above: Zooming in closer.



Above and Below: I changed cameras -- grabbing a camera with a long lens (greater magnification) and you can see more clearly the face of the Cormorant in flight. It is distinguished from its closest relatives by the lack of any white on its face.



Below: I felt like someone was looking at me from down along the lake shore. I looked more carefully and found this Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) looking up at me. They blend in perfectly with their surroundings which is a great defense mechanism. However, they have no natural predators. Only man is responsible for their demise.



Below: Turning back to the trees more birds were revealed. Another Great Blue Heron sitting silently high up in a Cypress Tree.



Below: There were other birds in the trees watching the waves come across the lake. This appears to be a Northern Sparrowhawk (or Eurasian Sparrowhawk; Accipiter nisus). If it is a Sparrowhawk, it is lost. While they have been reported in North America, they are not native to this continent.



Below: A closer look at the water revealed a sea of Alligator Ticks (or Giant Water Bugs). These bugs are in the Belostomatidae family of insects.



NOAA PREDICTS ANOTHER

DRY WINTER FOR FLORIDA

NOAA released its winter weather outlook (graphic below) and they are calling for yet another exceptionally dry winter for Florida. It should be noted, however, that last year's predictions were -- at best -- poor. While they predicted a dry winter they also predicted that it would be a warm winter.

Overall the South and Southeast were much drier than average, as predicted, but the Southeast was overall much colder than average -- a direct contradiction to the forecast of a warm winter.

Read the entire forecast at NOAA: U.S. dealt another La Niña winter .



Below: After the storm front has passed and very dry weather set in. Our lake looks much like it did prior to the sprinkling of rain; dry.

The other 8.00 inches (203 mm) we received earlier in October barely wet the parched ground.



WEATHER WILD CARDS

The only wild card remaining for this season is tropical weather systems. While it is very late in the season it is not unheard of to get a November Tropical Storm in Florida. Currently a large area of disturbed weather in the Western Caribbean is bringing heavy rains to coastal Nicaragua and Honduras. The heavy thunderstorms are in an area of weak steering currents, and will move little over the next two days. Wind shear is a high 20 - 30 knots in the region, but is expected to drop to the moderate range on Friday, and remain moderate through the weekend. This should allow some slow development of the disturbance.

The GFS, UKMET, and NOGAPS models all develop the disturbance into a tropical depression by Monday. The most likely areas to be affected by this hypothetical storm are Honduras and Nicaragua, but it can't be ruled out that a scenario might develop where the storm moves northwards and threatens Cuba late next week, as the UKMET model is predicting.

LINKS

PHILLIP'S NATURAL WORLD II

PHILLIP'S NATURAL WORLD III