Southwest Florida is already feeling Nicole’s results, however with all that wind and rain might come a threat that Floridians know all too nicely: red tide.
Since Hurricane Ian, FWC has discovered red tide current within the waters off Captiva’s shores, however now with one other storm on the best way, specialists are apprehensive extra rain might trigger a nasty bloom.
On Wednesday, on Sanibel, Matt DePaolis, the environmental coverage director for the Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation, was serving to to scrub up after the final hurricane, with one other on the best way.
“Yeah, we are seeing it in detectable levels, it has been increasing as a result of the nutrients being pushed out into the Gulf,” DePaolis mentioned. “The first wind is supposed to be gusting, I mean, you can feel the wind gusting out here right now, but as we are looking to Nicole moving through, we are expecting a lot of water to be dumped. Thankfully it’s not as large of a storm as Ian was looking, but when Ian came through, the lake raised over 3 feet.”
All that water is predicted to boost the extent of Lake Okeechobee by as a lot as a foot or extra, which implies nutrient-rich water will likely be headed down the Caloosahatchee River.
“So this will add another 6 inches to the lake because it’s not direct rainfall on the Lake, you’ve got the whole Kissimmee Valley watershed that supplies water down to the lake,” mentioned Dr. Barry Rosen, from FGCU.
Eventually, that water will make its approach to the salty waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the place specialists fear it might gas the already current red tide right into a full-blown bloom, killing fish and extra.
“Fish kills are one of the side effects of Red Tide, it does produce toxin that is harmful to all our wildlife, we will see those fish kills if it happens, some of our larger marine life is suffering as a result,” DePaolis added.
The Army Corps of Engineers will let NBC2 know when it plans to launch water from Lake Okeechobee after Nicole passes.