The Sanibel plate. Relief from Copernicus GLO-30; rivers and lakes from USGS NHD; watersheds from the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset; roads and city limits from Census TIGER 2024.
Partly cloudy
Sunny; warmer
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
5.17 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1892. The next wettest, 2.57 inches, fell in 1916.
Sanibel’s center stands about 6 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 20 ft, a difference of 20 ft: nearly flat ground. Open water lies within three miles.
The section below crosses 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 64×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sand, limestone. Age: Late Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 3.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sand. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 3 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale.
Heights from Copernicus GLO-90 (a surface model: it includes buildings and tree canopy); summits from USGS GNIS; rivers from USGS NHDPlus HR; rock from the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation.
Sanibel has a tropical monsoon climate. Summer afternoons average 92° in July; winter nights fall to about 54° in January. About 57 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Sanibel normally reaches 81° and falls to 62°. The record high is 90°, in 2018; the record low 43°, in 1968. The most rain on this date, 1.20 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1892 from the Fort Myers Area threaded record (Fort Myers Page Field Airport, 18 miles east-northeast). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
