Lake Jackson and Lake Miccosukee sinkholes exposed | December 2025

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For the first time I could remember, the retention pond down the street from WFSU went entirely dry. We’ve been in a drought, enough so that the National Weather Service declared an Extreme Drought event for the area. It’s no surprise that Porter Sink in Lake Jackson has shown itself once again, for the first time in over a year. This is the longest it has held water since 2021, and it has drained multiple times since the late 1990s.

I visited just a couple of days after it dried down, and again today, after a decent rain. I also visited the less-known sinkholes at the edge of Lake Miccosukee. Those first formed about fifteen years ago, and they dry down more often than Porter Sink. I was surprised by just how dry that section of the lake is right now.

The following are photos from my two Lake Jackson visits and my Lake Miccosukee visit, along with a few observations. I recently posted some of these photos on social media, and a friend from another part of the state commented that it didn’t look like Florida. We in the Big Bend/ Red Hills region know better – ours is a state of dynamic karst activity and more geology than we get credit for.

Sinkholes lake and karst geology links

If you wonder where the water goes and what happens to the fish, the WFSU Ecology Blog has answered those questions over the years. The water that drains into that sinkhole enters the labyrinth of the Floridan Aquifer, and we have a link to further reading about that as well. Or you can scroll right past and enjoy the photos.

• Everything you wanted to know about Lake Jackson dry downs. This post is from the big dry down in June of 2021. We have since revisited a few times and have observed how life in and around the lake responds to its dynamic water levels.
• We first visited the Lake Miccosukee sinkholes in 2018 with Florida State Geologist Harley Means (he was then Assistant State Geologist).
• The Woodville Karst Plain Project explores caves in the Wakulla Spring cave system. Project Director Dr. Chris Werner was recently my guest on the Coast to Canopy podcast. He shared some footage of their dives, which we can see in the video version. He also shed some light on the connectivity between waterways and the aquifer in our area.

Why had I never visited Porter Sink at sunset? Before the late 1990s, Lake Jackson had only dried down every twenty years or so. Now that it happens so much more often, we can continue visiting it, and keep seeing it in a new light, as it were.

One of my favorite features in the exposed lake bed are bluegill (AKA bream) nesting cavities:

I’ve been visiting these cavities for four-and-a half years now. My favorite thing about them is how they change appearance as the water levels rise and fall over their contours.

Walking at the lip of the basin, I could see the watermarks of a sinking lake.

A couple of years ago, I produced a segment on bird watching at Lake Jackson during dry down events. The sink was exposed when I started filming, and soon filled, letting us see how birds reacted when the water’s edge moved. A couple of months ago, I hosted one of the birders in that segment on Coast to Canopy. She was the first to tell me that the lake level was dropping, and that she looked forward to seeing how the birds would move in.

When the water is low enough to expose Porter Sink, much of the lake still retains water. Often during dry down events, the flat area to east of the sink is wet and full of wading birds. Not today, though:

It rained overnight on Monday, and today that same section of the lake was full of egrets and ibis. The area around the sink basin was muckier, but luckily I brought muck boots. If you visit after a rain, tread carefully. The edge of the basin should never be considered stable, and I would doubly avoid it after a rain.

Let’s take a peek into Porter Sink basin. The rain wasn’t enough to fill the basin, but we can see much more water sitting in it.

Even those bluegill nests are a little fuller:

There’s rain in the forecast throughout the week and weekend. Will it be enough to fill the basin? As former Lake Jackson Aquatic Preserve Manager Cait Snyder once told us, the basin is more likely to stay full in the winter. It is a heavily vegetated lake, and many of those thirsty plants are going dormant until spring. It’s also cooling, and less water will evaporate.

I’ll keep checking back as it rains.

While I was out with a camera and my muck boots, I drove over to Lake Miccosukee. When I’ve visited these sinkholes in the past, they’ve had waterfalls flowing into them. Here is a photo from November 2022:

Here is the same sinkhole now:

The waterfalls have gone dry, and there is no water inside the sink basin. I expected there to be some sign that it had rained. Instead, these two sinkholes are bone dry.

I walked to the channels that had fed the sinkhole waterfalls. They’re covered with cypress needles, and show no sign of having recently carried water.

These sinkholes are at the edge of the lake, and become exposed more regularly than Porter Sink. It’s been a dry few months, and it shows here.

I’ll be interested to see what it takes to get water flowing into these sinkholes again. I’ll keep an eye on it, and on Porter Sink, and will add photos to this post.

Well, that lasted less than two weeks. It’s cooling down and plants are in their dormant season, so the water level should remain more stable than in warmer months.

The lake is not so full that you can’t walk around the shore from Faulk Drive landing. It’s mucky right now, but if it stops raining (it was raining when I left there just before 10 am), birds are typically active when the shoreline moves.

I was working on a quick post about snow geese in Tallahassee, and I had seen that there was a rare bird alert for one at Faulk Drive Landing. I knew that the sinkhole was exposed again. It had only just rained enough to fill the sinkhole basin, and then more drought. Even a few inches of rain over the weekend didn’t seem to do much.

I walked past the basin in search of the goose, and then followed the stream leading into it from the other direction. No luck, but I never feel bad about visiting Lake Jackson.

And, of course, I can’t help but photograph that same bluegill nesting area:

Lydell Rawls, WFSU Public Media’s Digital Director and occasional Ecology Blog photographer, had never been to see Porter Sink. He had an eventful visit, and we get our first look at Lake Jackson in a couple of months.

Lydell encountered this bobcat where the boat ramp used to be on Faulk Drive Landing.

We’re now in the growing season, and the exposed soils are rich in organic matter. We may not see significant rainfall for a while, so the vegetation might grow thick here.