"Deep Horizon" Spill Response Page
http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/site/2931/
Florida DEP page dealing with State response and tracking:
http://www.dep.state.fl.us/deepwaterhorizon/default.htm
Oil a long-range threat to southwest and southeast Florida, Cuba, and the Bahamas
"The surface ocean currents that transport the oil are driven by the wind and by the large scale ocean current structure of the Gulf of Mexico. The latest surface ocean current forecast (Figure 3) from NOAA's RTOFS model indicates a complicated current structure along the Gulf Coast over the next seven days, making it difficult to predict exactly where the oil slick might go. The warm Loop Current enters the Gulf from the south and loops around to the southeast to exit through the Florida Keys. A counter-clockwise rotating cool eddy is located a few hundred miles south of the Florida Panhandle, and a clockwise-rotating warm eddy is located south of Louisiana's Mississippi Delta. If next Tuesday's cold front brings strong enough northwesterly winds to the oil spill region, it is possible that a portion of the spill will get caught in the circulation of these two eddies and sucked southwards into the Loop Current. If this occurs, the oil would be move relatively rapidly at 2 - 4 mph to the southeast and then eastwards through the Keys, potentially fouling beaches in the Keys, northwest Cuba, the southwest and southeast coasts of Florida, and the western Bahamas. Based on the movement of the spill earlier this week during offshore winds, I don't think the spill will be able to make it into the Loop Current next week. However, if the oil keeps spewing from the ocean floor for many months, eventually a wind pattern will set up that will take the oil into the Loop Current. This would most likely happen if a persistent trough of low pressure settles over the East Coast in May, or if a tropical storm makes landfall along the Florida Panhandle this summer. We're fortunate that there are no hurricanes to worry about right now, as the strong winds and storm surge of a hurricane would be able to drive the oil far inland along a wide swath of coast"
From:
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/Jef...?entrynum=1470
An overview in the Sunsentinel:
"Outer bands of the powerful Loop Current moved north to within 31 miles of the destroyed wellhead, spewing thousands of barrels a day. If the current reaches the spill, it could drag the slick south to the Florida Keys within days, and push it north to Broward and Palm Beach counties in a week to two weeks, marine scientists said.
"If it continues to move in that direction, and there is no reason why it shouldn't, the Loop Current could very well be at the wellhead," said Bob Weisberg, who is using satellite images to track the slick at the College of Marine Science at the University of South Florida. "So there is a strong likelihood that at some point in the future oil will be entrained into the Loop Current."
Gov. Charlie Crist on Monday extended a state of emergency south to Sarasota County. Everglades National Park, Big Cypress National Preserve, Dry Tortugas National Park and Biscayne National Park began disaster preparations, establishing a response team comparable to that set up for hurricanes, and Tuesday they will begin assessing vulnerable natural systems, such as mangrove shorelines."
Continued at:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/fl-loop-...,2846542.story
An article in the Miami Herald:
"Winds expected to shift and ease in the next few days could buy some time for weather-beaten crews battling to bottle up and burn off a massive slick of rust-colored crude before it fouls fragile marshes and sugary beaches across four Gulf Coast states.
But that brief reprieve could soon send a nasty ripple effect toward South Florida -- pushing outlying plumes of polluted surface water and patches of tar balls into the Gulf of Mexico's powerful loop current. That would propel the mess across the mangrove islands, seagrass beds and coral reefs of the Florida Keys, then up toward Miami Beach, Fort Lauderdale and beyond.
Oceanographers tracking the BP oil slick -- still expanding from an uncapped well belching an estimated 210,000 gallons a day -- said Monday that questions about the loop's impact have increasingly turned from if to when.
Satellite images suggest the loop, which moves seasonally, is creeping north, spinning off small whirls of current that University of Miami oceanographer Nick Shay said may already have drawn in the slick's leading, and lightest, edge.
Robert Weisberg, an oceanographer at the University of South Florida, who updates daily tracking models, pinpoints the loop still about 30 miles south of the slick.
But, he stressed, ``The immediacy of the collision of these two features is real. Will it happen in a day, two days, three days, a week, two weeks? I don't know. I'm not willing to say that yet.''
Read more:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/0...#ixzz0myo17Jmr
An article from the Tampa Tribune:
TAMPA - Northerly winds that slowed a massive oil spill's approach Tuesday to the Panhandle and northern Gulf Coast could mean disaster for the rest of Florida.
Those winds, prompted by the passage of a cold front, helped to keep oil at bay along the immediate shoreline in the Gulf of Mexico. But those winds might push the oil closer to the conveyor belt of ocean currents that could eventually send the oil all the way to the Florida Keys and up the state's east coast.
The oil moved precariously closer to the so-called Loop Current, the river of water in the Gulf that surges to the north before dipping southward through the Florida Keys. That current then turns into the Gulf Stream, which moves along the U.S. east coast."
Continued at:
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/may...news-breaking/
.......
Transport of the spill to Florida and into the Straits of Florida and up the east side of the state will depend upon many factors. Extension of the spill eastward to and entrainment by the Loop Current, transport southward and passage into flow of the Florida Current and up into the Straits of Florida. Weather, prevailing winds and nature of the oil plume along the way are key factors.
Animated current model chart over time at:
http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/ofs/viewe...rundate=latest
There is a cold front passing over Florida currently (May 4, 2010) with winds clocking with that passage. Spill transport in a given direction is in part a function of the speed and duration of wind relative to that direction. Winds shift in terms of direction and speed regularly throughout time further complicating transport predictions. Model winds and waves out to 180 hours from the present appear at:
http://dadecosurf.com/nww3_height
More wind and related weather information at:
http://fksa.org/showthread.php?t=6734
More about transport and fate of oil releases at sea
http://www.offshore-environment.com/oil.html
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