Florida Lake now completely empty

When the lake was dry there was three little creeks dumping into a sinkhole. I think the sinkhole is always there and it just opens up. Get a really big rubber plug like the one used on a old bathtub and stick it in the sinkhole.

So wait, lemme ask this, it may have been addressed already but I havent read all 5 pages.
Does the hole that the water drains into, lead to the same spring that eventually replenishes the lake or do they know/

Originally posted by CB328
There are too many people on this planet so what do we expect?

Oh no! It's a "People-er". Like everything else is a part of nature but people aren't...we're an enigma and we're not supposed to be here! Boy, God really screwed that up, didn't he?

This is not too far from my house and this is the first I've heard about it. Interesting!

Originally posted by getreadyalready
reply to post by GuidedKill

 

I agree with all except it doesn't take that long to drain. Once the sink hole opens up, it drains in under a week. This time it took 3 days.

US Drought Map

If you look at that map, you will see dark red for severe drought from Atlanta arching west and south. The tip of the red where it crosses the Florida Border in the panhandle is precisely the location of this lake.

So, if that is the area feeding the aquifer, then it is going to take an enormous amount of rain to begin to recover from the drought.

If I were a betting man, and I am, then I would guess there are going to be some tropical storms or hurricanes that follow that very path this year. Nature has a way of finding an equilibrium, and I have a feeling a bunch of rain is in store for that red swoop.

After looking at that drought map...those red areas must be REALLY dry. I live in the Chicago suburbs. It rained lightly for a couple hours the other day. It had rained for about 20 seconds the previous probably 6 weeks, and we're just in the yellow zone.

so have you asked the police whats going on?

That is very interesting. I wonder why it is occurring more frequently now.

Do you know how many sinkholes there? Is the dry lake bed closed off for safety?

They mine phosphates in Florida. Cargill paid $1 billion for the phosphate mining company down there. How close is the nearest phosphate mining operation from this lake?

crazy

Originally posted by Pervius
They mine phosphates in Florida. Cargill paid $1 billion for the phosphate mining company down there. How close is the nearest phosphate mining operation from this lake?

Good question. I'll check into that. I know we have a couple of quarries nearby, but I always thought they were just hauling out sand. We export a lot of sand to the beaches and other states. There very well could be a phosphate mine very close-by, I'll ask some of the people who've lived here longer than me.

So Tropical Storm Debby has decided to just hang out and refill all of our lakes!! It was originally forecast to go due west, but here we are 2 or 3 days later and it hasn't moved much at all, and now the forecast is for it to meander back to the East.

In the meantime we have already gotten about 5 inches of rain and they are calling for as much as 12 more inches!

I think we called it HERE first!

If I were a betting man, and I am, then I would guess there are going to be some tropical storms or hurricanes that follow that very path this year. Nature has a way of finding an equilibrium, and I have a feeling a bunch of rain is in store for that red swoop.

reply to post by getreadyalready


Can you get our and take a few pics if/when it starts to fill up again?

I would be interested in seeing a few.

reply to post by liejunkie01


Sure. I'll get out this weekend and take some more pics if it ever quits raining.

reply to post by getreadyalready


Or even here. Glad you are getting some rain to fill that dry bed, although I ponder what mysteries might've been discovered had the exploration teams had the time to really delve into the sinkholes. Stuff like this fascinates me, because I think there have to be layers and ecosystems that we don't understand. Pressures, and cavities that could equalize from fairly far away, ebbing and flowing like the tides.

Debby has churned up at least one tornado and a loss of life. I hope that's it for her, quirky TS that she is. Tracking seems to be confused, and the COC seems to be kinda noodling around Apalachiacola. She's packing a hell of a lot of rain for a 50ish mph TS.

As with others, I'm interested in seeing photos of the filling. One thing I meant to ask........ how many tributaries feed into the lake?

reply to post by argentus




You were right on the money with this storm! Apparently it is the perfect combination to create record flooding here in Tallahassee, and an emergency situation has already been declared. I almost lost my African Sulcatas! When I got home from work they were snorkeling. Their shells were underwater, and their necks were outstretched to get above the waterline and breath. Their pen has never had any standing water in it in the last 2 or 3 years, but right now it is about 8 inches deep over the whole pen. Lucky I came home a little early.

They are calling for at least 2 more inches tomorrow, but it could be more than that. On the bright side, we may not have to work tomorrow.

So, no pictures yet guys, but I do have a couple of stories to share regarding sink holes and the recent storm and flooding!

I just left an auto parts store and the girl that checked me out had pictures on her phone of her jeep cherokee just about completely submerged in a sinkhole in her front yard. She lives south of Tallahassee and the sink hole opened up during the rains Monday. It was big enough to swallow her Jeep! She has since recovered the jeep, but it took 3 trucks to pull it out, and the hole is still in her yard!

On the same day, a neighbor a few doors down lost a shed into a sinkhole about the same size!

Those events happened approximately 25 miles south of Lake Jackson.

Also, during the storm and flooding, the guy checking out with me said he and a friend were trying to drive home, the crossed a bridge with water higher in the stream below than they had ever seen, so they stopped on the other side to look back at the water and within moments the bridge washed out and disappeared! They had just driven across it moments before.

So, there are a couple of cool stories from my part store visit! My house did not flood. I'm pretty amazed that it didn't. We supposedly got up to 24 inches of rain in some parts of the town.

From what I am hearing, Lake Jackson did not really benefit from the rains at all, but I still plan to go out and see it this weekend.

reply to post by getreadyalready


I still havent figured out the question I asked a while ago.
Does this water drain into the same underground aquifer that also replenishes it?

reply to post by Juggernog


I think so. It doesn't have any exit streams, and it only has a few very small runoff streams into it. I don't know what type of engineering or things have been done over the decades or past century or two to make it a pond instead of a wetland or swamp.

The wiki link provided earlier says sediment typically fills the sinks, but when water tables get low the sediment collapses and allows the lake to drain into the underground aquifer. It doesn't say much about how it refills though?

Water drains from the lake into the Floridan Aquifer through the sinkholes. These are usually partially or completely plugged with sediments, but collapse when groundwater levels drop, allowing lake water to funnel into the aquifer, which can virtually completely drain the lake. This usually happens every 25 years. The last time it drained was September 16, 1999[1]. On May 10, 2007, the lake flowed down the Porter Sink, but pools of water still remained.

Apparently it is part of the Ochlockonee River Watershed, which runs from Georgia to the Coast and also include the manmade Lake Talquin.

Here is a Google Map of the lake and surrounding area.

reply to post by getreadyalready


So then, there would have to be another "air hole" somewhere right. Something to equalize the pressure?