Keep in mind I’m not the type of hydrologist that likes to dumb things down.
|Click here to enlarge|
The graph covers a couple key bases for Lake Okeechobee:
From top to bottom, that includes (1) the lake’s water budget (in cubic feet per second and inch equivalents of lake stage), (2) rainfall (Lake O and the Kissimmee), (3) Lake stage and volume, (4) inflows from the Kissimmee (relative to the historic record), and (5) outflows to the Caloosahatchee (relative to estuarine flow thresholds) …
All from August 2008 to present.
To see the Lake you've got to be able to see all its parts all on one page within historical context. Understanding the Lake is a lot more complicated than knowing its stage (which by the way is 12.85 ft mean sea level).
Click here to see an even more expansive Lake Okeechobee Cheat Sheet.
|Hydrologic map of Lake Okeechobee|
There is of course a time and place for simplification ...
But first you have to get intimately familiar with the nitty gritty facts.
Not vice versa!