Buresh Blog: Our wet season... a toasty May... Jekyll Island turtle tracking

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2 days ago

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Our wet season is June, July, August & September - an average of 28.81″ of rain - & generally accounts for more than half of Jacksonville's/NE Fl. & SE Ga. annual rainfall. I define the start of the wet season as at least 3 days in a row with more than half of NE Fl. & SE Ga. measuring rain that is not caused by a large scale system like a front or low pressure system, for example. Our wet season is driven by two main forces:
(1) the nearly daily sea breeze - either from the east coast or west coast or both. As the land heats up adjacent to the cooler ocean, a natural area of low pressure forms over land. Since air flows from high to low pressure, a sea breeze develops which acts like a front & lifts the hot, humid air creating showers & storms as the sea breeze moves inland (at least as long as the atmosphere is favorable such as high humidity & at least somewhat cooler air aloft).
(2) tropical disturbances - this could be tropical waves, tropical depressions, tropical storms or hurricanes.
We're coming off a very warm May - only one days was below average & not until the 31st. Jacksonville had its 5th warmest May on record (going back to 1871)... a record number of 90-degree days with 19... a record number for May - 16 - straight 90-degree days (the old record - 12 straight days in 1957)... & the highest average high temp. for May on record at 90.4 degrees. For the spring months of March, April & May, it was the second warmest on record (71.1 degrees/+2.6 degrees) for Jacksonville with the 24 90-degree days beating the old spring record of 23 days in 2011, the average is 10 days.
This is pretty cool - the Jekyll Island Authority launches an interactive map to track turtle activity. From GPB News: Wildlife officials have deployed an interactive dashboard with real-time maps tracking diamondback terrapin crossings and sea turtle nests on beaches. The full story is * here *.
Photo source: National Park Service