St. Petersberg Webcam - Tampa Bay Hotel
Tampa Bay is a large natural harbor and estuary that includes Hillsborough, McKay, Middle Tampa Bay and Tampa Bay. An estimated 4 million citizens live in the surrounding area, making it a widely used commercial and recreational waterway, but giving great importance to a bay ecosystem that once seemed wild enough to support an extensive indigenous culture.
In recent decades, Tampa Bay has taken steps to mitigate the ecological impact on human life in this area of Tampa Bay. Today, it is safe to say that water quality has improved. Local marketing and branding efforts (including several professional sports teams, tourist boards and chambers of commerce) commonly use the moniker "Tampa Bay," which contributes to the misconception that it is the name of a particular municipality when it is not.
About 6,000 years ago, Tampa Bay was formed as a brackish river valley type. It formed over time as a wide-mouth estuary connecting it to the Gulf of Mexico. For a long time it was simply a freshwater lake, possibly fed by the Floridan Aquifer through natural underground springs. The leading theory is that rising sea levels after the last ice age, combined with the formation of a massive sink near the current mouth of the bay, created the connection between the lake and the bay.
Tampa Bay is Florida's largest open estuary, spanning more than 400 square miles. Tampa Bay's shallow waters are home to a wide variety of wildlife. More than 200 species of fish, as well as dolphins and manatees, and many species of marine invertebrates, including oysters, scallops, clams, shrimp and crabs are found in the waters of the bay. You can see the Tampa Bay hotel thanks to an active webcam. Pictures are available 24 hours a day, and video is available in real time.
