Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Florida Project: A light shower


 
Our goal is to experience what it is like to live in Florida. We are usually warned about hurricanes hitting Florida. My response is always: in the past two years we have had two hurricanes hit New York and none hit Florida. So, where is the real concern? I think it is just a bunch of hot air (no pun intended). We are in Florida for a month and it is going to be nothing but blue skies and sun shine!

 

And then we hear about this thing called Tropical Storm Chantal. Chantal is not a hurricane, but it is a significant storm that threatens my blue skies! We have been keeping a close eye on the storm as it passes into the Bahamas and heads North. Forecasts say it will head up the coast, and then immediately swing west across our path. And with our luck? It will pause over house and stall. That’s just the way things tend to go for us.

 

Living in New York, I am well accustom to grey skies. And living through winters near Lake Ontario, I am very experienced with 60mph winds because an icey wind blows all year long. How bad could a tropical storm be in comparison? Here’s my thought: life is hard in upstate New York; we see 50mph winds and don’t think twice. But I think that in paradise, Floridians get upset if a cloud passes in front of the sun. Their forecast calls for showers regularly – in New York that means 3 or 4 days of flooding rains; in Florida it means a 15 minute pop-up thunder shower. I’m thinking they are over reacting. That a tropical storm is just a rainy and windy day. It is a minor disruption in paradise.

 

And chances are excellent that the computer models are all wrong, that Chantal will continue traveling north and slam New York.  We should have our answer by this weekend.

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