Monday 9 October 2017

Hurricane Nate Sculpts & Cleans Our Beach

Hello Nate!
Well I spoke too soon. Temperatures in the 90s F (~33C) are back and it is very muggy & sticky. Ah well, we still have a little breeze. I have been waiting to see if the tide goes under our building into the parking garage - let me explain.

Things were pretty quiet on the beach . ..  a fair number of people out, sand washed back in from Hurricane Irma; life was  . . . well dull.


The biggest excitement was this cherry picker with caterpillar tracks moving down the beach and a silly silly woman feeding the birds looking like the pied piper as they followed her on her sandy stroll . You can see in these photos the Gulf of Mexico looks as calm as a small pond.


Our impact from Hurricane Nate, arrived Saturday the 7th October.

surfing with a float!
Over the past few days we had onshore to offshore winds that pushed water away from the beach.  We also had a full moon and hence a high Spring Tide.

The winds and waves bring out the kite surfers, body surfers and the kid in all of us. Saturday afternoon the water approached our under building parking . . .

These two things - wind blowing offshore and Spring Tide - combined with Hurricane Nate travelling through and stirring up the Gulf brought back the water pushed outward. Hence the groynes were totally submerged and hidden. The size of the waves and the height of the tide on the beach has waxed and waned over the past day.


See how the dunes protect the beach -- except where there aren't dunes . . . and hence water comes close to our under building parking.

Monday morning I can see Nate has re-sculpted the beach flattening out the storm scarp and the cliff edge created by Irma. He removed a bit of sand (like Irma) so more groyne pillars are exposed, but I expect that sand to return over the next week.

The BBC weatherman forecasts the remnants of Nate will help bring up southerly winds and warmer temperatures for my London friends later this week.


Taken Sunday morning, there is still lots of debris from Hurricane Irma to be picked up.

And here's some more fun dolphin shots sis' took on her recent visit. I got a scope and tripod for my big birthday, so hopefully soon I can take these myself!




4 comments:

  1. Last night (9th) we had our 23rd session of shuffleboard league play, and the first time for a rain out!

    And our last loggerhead turtle nest on St Pete Beach hatched!

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  2. Hope the calm returns soon. some weather can be just too exciting!

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  3. Stone Crab season begins Sunday 15 October. The crab pots come out up to 10 days in advance and boy do we have plenty - including the red marked ones on our sandbar just outside our window. Tasty!

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  4. Rained out again at shuffleboard last Monday the 23rd; second time for a downpour on Monday night in two weeks. First time we had started to practice, last Monday didn't even get to the club - streets flooded both times. A cold front has dropped the temperature 10 degrees (Fahrenheit) and a high surf advisory posted for today.

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