SEAKEYS 1999: Florida Keys Monitoring Initiative

The Sustained Ecological Research Related to the Management of the Florida Keys Seascape (SEAKEYS) program was organized in 1991 by the Florida Institute of Oceanography (FIO) with initial funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and continuing funding from the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration, Prediction and Monitoring (SFERPM) program, administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The SEAKEYS environmental monitoring program, which is basically an oceanographic extension to the meteorologically-oriented Coastal-Marine Automated Network of NOAA, has accumulated an unparalleled long-term database of meteorological and oceanographic data from the Florida Straits and Florida Bay.

During 1998 the SEAKEYS network was upgraded with more precise oceanographic sensors, and selected stations were augmented with fluorometers, transmissometers, and water-level sensing equipment. A seventh monitoring station, a cooperative effort between FIO and the University of South Florida's Department of Marine Science (USF/DMS), was completed in Northwest Florida Bay at 25° 05' 00" N, 81° 05' 30" W during summer, 1998. This station also contains a full suite of meteorological and oceanographic instrumentation and also transmits its data hourly via a NOAA GOES satellite. The Northwest Florida Bay station is the northwesternmost station in the SEAKEYS network, as well as the southernmost link in the West Florida Coastal Ocean Monitoring and Prediction System of USF/DMS.

Turbulent weather was prominent during 1998 in the Florida Keys. Severe conditions reported by the SEAKEYS stations included the Ground Hog Day Storm, Hurricane Georges, and Tropical Storm Mitch. In most cases the instruments on the SEAKEYS stations recorded the only the meteorological and oceanographic measurements accompanying these events in the Florida Keys. The Long Key station measured the highest winds (119 mph) in South Florida during the Ground Hog Day Storm of February 2, 1998. On September 25, 1998 the eye of Hurricane Georges passed over Key West at 1150 EDT as wind speeds dropped from 85.2 mph to 9.6 mph. The eye moved across the Dry Tortugas station at 1610 EDT with barometric pressures dropping to 974.4 mb. Winds gusted to hurricane force only after the eye passed at 2100 EDT. Georges' most severe winds in the Florida Keys gusted to 113 mph at Sombrero Reef, with a sustained wind speed of 94 mph. Long Key, Molasses Reef, and Fowey Rocks received gusts of tropical storm force. The tide station at Sombrero Reef reported a storm water level of 2.87 feet above mean low water. This contrasted with below normal levels reported at the Long Key station on Florida Bay. Hurricane Mitch passed northwest of the Florida Keys on the evening of November 4, 1998, bringing peak winds of 62.4 mph at Molasses Reef and sustained gale force winds until the following afternoon. Numerous localized tornadoes spawned by this storm caused extensive damage in the Upper Keys.

Daily near real-time SEAKEYS data are available to researchers via NOAA's Coral Health and Monitoring Program (CHAMP) Web site at http://www.coral.noaa.gov, while historical data are available at http://www.neptune.noaa.gov. The Coral Reef Early Warning System (CREWS), which utilizes the near real-time data from six SEAKEYS stations, is an online expert system which monitors environmental conditions on the reef that are theoretically conducive to coral bleaching. If these conditions occur, alerts are sent via email to researchers and posted to the Web at http://www.coral.noaa.gov/sferpm/seakeys/es.