Still Like a Lion

Another thunderstorm came roaring through yesterday. This one's center was a bit south of us although we did get enough rain to fill the swale (yay, the moat is back!) and roaring winds interspersed with unnerving spots of dead calm.

The radio kept interrupting programming with announcements of severe thunderstorm warnings (as last time, redundant), sometimes as frequently as every three minutes. The announcing voice was robo-generated and listed, with curious and amusing pronunciation, a long and slowly shifting roster of affected counties as the storm moved east.

The tornado warning showed up about an hour into the storm warnings. By then the bulk of the storm was away south between the coast and the airport. Shortly after, the rain stopped in our area and the clouds broke.

The Christmas grapefruit tree required re-righting, again.

I didn't realize another tornado had touched down until I saw the paper today. They don't list the intensity so I assume it was weaker than the one that touched down here last week but it did manage to cause severe, although extremely localized, damage to an apartment complex and closed the airport for a while. And then overbooked the airport as the storm moved east and flights destined for Miami were diverted here.

There was extensive flooding as well and, judging by the sheer number of photographs of the fourteenth hole at the Whiskey Creek Golf Course, somebody lost their tee time and is taking it rather personally.

It also managed to chase a pair of retired snowbirds back to Ohio. Wimps.

The weather folks are trying to get ahead of the curve and are predicting severe thunderstorms with possible tornado for tomorrow.

The Clockwork Calendar

The weather folks announced Rainy Season is scheduled to begin this week. So far the clouds have rolled in on schedule every afternoon along with occasional thunder but no actual rain, yet.

In anticipation, the builders not only put up the under-roof on the new house across the way last week, but also managed to nail down the tar paper covering and install the windows so the interior is mostly waterproof now (although there are no doors either on the house or garage). The interior framing is installed as well but I haven't seen anyone around in close to a week now.

Meanwhile, while we're waiting for the rain:

There are butterflies everywhere. Mostly sulphurs and zebras of various shades of black and yellow. I saw a beautiful copper colored one this morning, like a small, dark Monarch, that blended in well with the dead leaves.

We have several buckets set up along the front walkway, three or four with tomatoes and a couple with peppers. We picked a couple of cherry tomatoes already and there's a nice bell pepper that'll be ready in a day or two. Others are ripening and more flowers are blooming every day. I've already chopped up a couple of ripe mangoes and there are more turning yellow-red. We have several green ones my brother brought in but I don't know if they fell or if he just picked them unripe. They're starting to soften so I'll cut them up and see if they're edible as is or if I have to cook them. So far this year, they're all on the smallish side but, if the rains do come as predicted, they could still grow more.

The bucket of sticks in water by the front door, which is just one of several scattered along the side of the house, has come to life after a couple of years and  seems to be blossoming into frangipani. As a matter of fact, they all are. The bougainvillea is in full bloom as is the desert rose and a dozen or so lilies between the house and the walkway. And the new coconut palm and banana tree have both outgrown their pots. (The banana's easy but the coconut will have to be placed far enough from where people and cars normally go so falling fruit doesn't kill or injure someone or damage a vehicle.)

The only downside right now is that the clouds have brought humidity to go with the heat and so we've had to close up the house again after a couple of glorious weeks and turn on the A/C.

Update: Right after posting this the clouds rolled in, the lightning struck and thunder roared and the rain came pelting down in sheets so thick you can't see the road out front. Rainy Season, right on time.

One Close Call

Holy Shit!!

I never want to be that close to a lightning strike ever again!

We're back in the cycle of afternoon thunderstorms and some of them have been pretty intense. Yesterday, I was coming out of the library as a storm approached (actually I was just stepping out long enough to make sure I had my car windows rolled up). The sun was still out although there were massive clouds gathering all around, including right over head. I looked up just in time to see the flash.

It forked into two main branches with a number of smaller ones splitting off even further. One branch arced over the library and the other came pretty much straight down. The crash of thunder shook the building and everything around about while the after-image was still burning into my retina. I could feel the concussive effect of the collapsing air pocket, much like standing close in to a fireworks display.

The crew of Mexican gardeners working on the lawn and the plantings at the base of the palm trees didn't react at all, but then they were all wearing industrial strength earphones to deaden the roar of their own equipment. I'd say that's a testimonial to the headgear's effectiveness.

We had another storm last night, after I got home, which moved directly overhead and was intense enough to freak out the cats. And another one is rolling in as I type. Still, I can't imagine I'll ever get that up close and personal with a lightning bolt again.

A Midsummer Night's Light Show

When I returned home yesterday evening the sky was overcast (we're back in a cycle of clear, bright mornings and rainy afternoons/evenings) so I settled in to watch the Rays lose another baseball game and didn't think about the night sky until I went to take the trash out before going to bed (about 1:30 a.m.).

The clouds near us had all gone away and the nearly full Moon was so bright it turned the sky a dark pale blue. Despite the glare, Mars was still visible just to the west and Saturn just to the east of the Moon. It was too bright to use the telescope on them, though.

However, the best part was much closer to home. Although the sky overhead was clear there was a huge arc of cumulus clouds along the horizon from south to west, all illuminated by moonglow. In addition, both ends of the arc were lit up by lightning. I couldn't really see the detail off to the west, only occasional flashes, but the thunder cell to the south was continuously active with streaks and bursts of light chasing across and around the clouds, often behind but sometimes with lightning bolts in front arcing across the sky and looking like nothing so much as an animation of nerve impulses racing through a brain.

There was no breeze and the clouds were far enough away (about 50 miles, or just south of Marco Island. I checked the weather radar later) that no thunder could be heard. Just a silent, unending, living light show under the Moon and planets and motionless palms.

I stood there for a good half hour just enjoying this awesome world.

A Very Long Day's Night

I had forgotten that the lunar eclipse was last night until just before it started so I hadn't taken a nap or otherwise prepared and was pretty well wiped out by show time.

Nevertheless, my brother and I took my telescopic Christmas present outside and spent some time alternating between the Moon and Mars. Mars, although much smaller, was brighter and a lighter, cleaner, friendlier red. The Moon was angrier, mottled by the intrinsic difference in brightness between the maria and the highlands. As the Moon darkened, Spica, which is currently just south of it and invisible in the glare of fullness, became temporarily prominent.

And then, once more, just as with every other astronomical event I try to watch, the clouds slid in. Thin, high cirrus, not thoroughly blocking naked eye viewing but destroying any chance of seeing through the telescope. Just before totality the Moon was obscured and Mars followed shortly. My brother went inside. I stayed out for a while and there were, indeed, moments where gaps allowed me to see a beautiful deep red eclipse but they were few and fleeting.

I packed up, finally, about 4 a.m. and went in. My brother had fallen asleep. I went out a couple more times without the 'scope but, although there was clear viewing off to the west, the clouds were coming up from the south and continued to hide the Moon and Mars.

I turned on NASA TV and tried to watch there but their music was awful and, in any event, clouds (perhaps the same high cirrus. Does NASA film from Kennedy Space Center?) soon swept across their shots, too.

Eternally optimistic, I now await the Leonids on Thursday. They should be coming right out of Mars. Unless there are clouds.

UPDATE:
Rain all afternoon and into the evening, frequently heavy. Clouds all night and today. Rain forecast for this afternoon and evening.

No Leonids meteor shower for us.

Downloading Plans for an Ark

Well, the rain keeps coming down in torrents despite promises otherwise by the weatherfolk. We get occasional breaks, long enough to drive to the store or the library usually, but then the skies blacken and the lightning returns and the thunder rolls over and we're back under water again. The mango tree was starting a second crop and between the rain and the wind a half dozen not-quite-ripe mangoes have been knocked down so far. They're salvageable.

The canals are all full to the brink (but they have been for a while now) and we are under a flood warning. The swale around our property and the lower part of the driveway are under water as is the low part of the back yard. Some roads have been flooded although not near us. The swales, ditches and low spots by the sides of the roads, however, are all wet and rising.

The local paper reminds us that we are the lightning capital of the country. A sheriff's patrol car was struck by lightning out on the Interstate yesterday damaging the flasher light assembly on the roof. I'm sure it got the deputy's adrenaline flowing, too.

Also, the mosquito control agency is warning everyone that the continuous storms are not only creating standing water everywhere that will invite increased breeding of our 48 different species of bloodsuckers but are also preventing the spray planes from flying. So, we're on our own for now.

At least the birdbath doesn't need daily replenishing although no one visits it now, either. I did see a dove bathing in the driveway.

Jasmine and her daughters are not fans of thunder especially when the strikes are within a quarter mile of the house as they were all night long the night before last. They're not as bad as a dog would be in similar circumstances but they do huddle together in one big soft, fluffy pile of nervous energy.

And still Bartleby prefers being under the lawn chair beneath the live oak to the comforts (and dryness) of the garage.

On the Effectiveness of Warding Talismans

So Isaac passed us by. It's not surprising seeing how well prepared we were.

It's seems the more actions taken in anticipation of an event the less likely the event becomes, almost as if the preparation itself is a kind of shield.

We had stocked up on non-perishable, pre-cooked food. We pulled out our flashlights and candles and filled water jugs in addition to the bottles of various juices already on hand. We rummaged through the garage in a successful search for Sterno so we could, in the event, heat the food that needed no cooking anyway. We pulled in the lawn furniture, snugging it up along the picket fence leading to the front door, and and pushed the trash bins against the garage weighting the lids with spare tires.

And Isaac came on.

The county removed the tolls from the various bridges although I'm not sure why since they're paid one way only, and that westbound, meaning anyone evacuating the barrier islands or the Cape eastbound crosses for free normally anyway. The county also closed all government offices, courts, libraries, etc. The cities closed schools. The county ordered mandatory evacuation of the islands and some mainland beach communities but was generally ignored.

And still Isaac came on.

I think what finally did the trick was my brother getting up early Sunday morning to go out and buy 25 gallons of gasoline for the generator. Within hours of his return, Isaac gave up and took a jog out to sea.

In the end, nothing happened. Sunday was overcast. Only after dark did the wind pick up intermittently with a smattering of rain. Three transformers blew up in the neighborhood but down here virtually every telephone pole also carries a transformer so, except for the actual explosions, the effects were negligible. Monday alternated between gray with moderate winds and occasional squally rain and bright sunny calm blue sky. There was a heavy cloud bank off to the west out over the Gulf and some thunder and lightning up north but nothing near us. In all, we received barely two inches of rain. The Atlantic coast and Lake Okeechobee (further away from the storm) received anywhere from three to ten times as much.

My brother expressed relief he didn't waste the energy boarding up any windows. The way the talismans worked, both ours and the county's, if he had, Isaac might just have evaporated away.

The Calm Before

Isaac is on his way. Currently, there is a hurricane warning from the keys up to Bonita Beach which is about twenty miles south of us. We have a tropical storm watch notice.

Yesterday was perfect. Warm, sunny, high broken clouds. No humidity. In other words, a tease. While still warm and dry, today is heavily overcast with high, thick clouds thinning slightly to the north. Under that cover lurks a bank of cumulus covering most of the southern horizon. These clouds are not Isaac but are being pushed ahead of the storm as it nears. Wind is gentle from the west. Water in our numerous canals is slightly roiled.

Isaac is supposed to stay out to sea and become stronger as it passes us. That means probably less wind (first from the east, then south and, finally, west) but more rain as the cyclonic spin carries water to us from the Gulf without first passing over other land. Rain is scheduled to start sometime this evening and could last for two or three days. There will be flooding.

We have stocked up on canned goods (the kind that can be eaten directly from the tin in case the power goes off although I'll probably stick with the tuna as canned ravioli and packages of chicken 'n' dumplings in pasty "gravy" appeal only slightly more than cannibalism as menu options), bottled juices, bread and cat food (a necessity since I am confident the cat would have no compunction about considering either of us menu options if the need/opportunity arose). Our flashlights and emergency radio are crank operated so batteries are not an issue. We could use more peanut butter and I'll pick up another book from the library. I'll have to remember to do laundry tonight.

Odds are none of this will be necessary (except the laundry).

Red and Yellow Boxes On the Map

In the going-on-three-years that I've lived here now, and the thirty-plus years I've been visiting before that, I have never experienced--not even during hurricanes--the intensity of the weather and the weather warnings we had last night.

Early in the evening the TV ran a crawl warning of severe weather offshore. There were two different, very specific, warnings: one for up to 20NM from shore and another for 20 to 60NM out. I've never before seen anything more than generalized high seas warnings.

A couple of hours later I could see lightning flashes way off to the west.

Shortly thereafter, the TV began a crawl warning of severe thunderstorms. The lightning came closer. The crawl warned people to get inside, postpone travel and take shelter but not in a vehicle or mobile home. Lightning covered the entire western sky and was close enough for the thunder to roll through.

The severe thunderstorm warning began alternating with a tornado warning. The instructions were to prepare to move to an inside windowless room in a substantial structure. Again, no vehicles, no mobile homes and, if you're outside (where advice from the TV is going to be useless) lie down in a ditch and cover your head. The lightning started striking nearby and rain came down.

At that point the weather people broke into programming and put up a local map. They showed yellow boxes for the thunderstorm warning areas and a red box for the tornado warning and reported rotation in the upper winds and a sighting of a funnel cloud (although no reported touchdown). We were in a yellow box but just (and I mean by a couple of streets) outside the red box. The entire county was under one or both warnings and lightning was striking continuously all around the house now.

I gathered my shoes, wallet and phone and brought Bartleby inside. Although the cat was happy to be indoors she seemed unfazed by the light show until one bolt hit so close there was no time delay for the thunder. She jumped at that one.

Despite local impressions, the storm was dissipating as it came ashore. The rotational winds were south of us along the river, heading away and slackening. The clouds were losing height (as shown on really neat 3-D radar imaging). As the trailing edge of the storm front came ashore our yellow warning box was removed form the map and the county south of us came under warning instead. They also got a tornado warning.

The rain slackened and by 2 a.m. it was all over.

The good news is the sun is out this morning for the first time in over a week.

Miscellanea, (Mostly Meteorlogical)

Looks like Rainy Season is finally officially here. Haven't seen the sun since before the transit of Venus which we didn't see either. It rains at least once every day now, sometimes in the morning sometimes in the evening. At least I'm remembering to close up my car. . .and the birdbath is staying full.

Of course, now that it's raining, the grass is greening up and growing fast and the lawn mower is busted again. From the symptoms, I'm thinking the drive belt has irretrievably stretched out of shape.

You know it's humid when the weather report lists the current temperature as 87F "but feels like 100F." For the record, yes, it does.

The most active burrowing owl habitat around this season is on my way to the library. An adult is always perched on one of the little cruciform burrow-marking stakes and usually one or more of the family is on the ground nearby. I went by once and there were four of them on the ground surrounding the one on the perch. There are a number of open lots nearby so this place may have some really easy hunting.

I just heard "Car Talk" will be coming to an end this fall after 25 years. Almost everything I know automotively (which admittedly is not much) I learned from those guys.

Yesterday would've been Mom's 92nd birthday. My brother bought four pints of Ben & Jerry's, two for him and two for me. They were on sale. Happy Birthday! (I'm going to make mine last at least a month.)

New Directions, Assessed

Well, that was interesting.

There were 12 people RSVPed for the meeting Thursday night including me, six showed up (including me but not counting the presenter's young son, who is also a member of the group but slept through most of it). It was a two and a half hour trip and I arrived late thanks to a blinding downpour in St. Pete that brought highway traffic to a near standstill.

The main presentation, which was the theme for the evening, was very. . .ad hoc. . .but I did get the chance to meet the folks who were there and introduce myself and, although there was no time to go into any detail about my game idea, they all expressed the generalized interest in working on some game at some point. I think my best approach may be to create my own presentation and offer to do a meeting but first I'd like to see how many people actually show up to this thing on a regular basis.

At least I was treated to a spectacular lightning show over Tampa Bay and southward on my way back. Enormous arcs crisscrossed the sky both through the clouds and along their undersides with occasional ground strikes for the first half of my trip home.

Moon Walk

Our skies were mostly clear these past two nights so I took advantage to stroll around.

The moonlight was so intense some colors returned to the evening, the sky slate blue, the grass deep olive green but only when out from under the trees. All the shadows remained shades of gray. The few clouds were bright chalky white above and mithril silver below.

The moonshadows were almost as deep as the ones from a nearby streetlight but more delicate. When the hazy edge of a cloud partially obscured the moon, the moonshadows faded although the moon itself stayed visible. Otherwise, the only way I could identify the lunar shadow was because it was shorter, the moon being higher in the sky.

Some birds began singing, the opposite effect from a solar eclipse when the sudden loss of light sends animals into night time mode. If the night-blooming jasmine had been ready I might have stayed out there 'til sunrise.

Arriving Unannounced

It looks like Rainy Season may have snuck up on us. None of the official weather people have mentioned it yet, but two days ago the sky suddenly clouded up, thick, bulging, heavy, dark and fast and, right at noon, the downpour began. It settled into a mild drizzle for most of the afternoon and then opened up again for a short period around dinner time.

The poor cat knew what was coming and was frantically begging to come inside just before the storm hit but my brother had set up a shelter for her just off the driveway. (No indoors for kitty until the vet checks her out--which visit has not yet been scheduled.)

Today's Weather Channel local outlook forecasts rain or showers every day but two for the next week, and those two days are to be at best "party cloudy." All the windows remain open until we figure out which direction the rain is coming from since the temperatures are staying in the low to mid 80s all week as well.

Miscellanea

Well, the humidity is gone, there's not a cloud in the sky, a "cold" front came through a couple of days ago and the temperature is hovering around 75F. The air-conditioning is off and the doors and windows open. This is what people come to Florida for. They should start arriving in a month.

Meanwhile, Mom's insomnia is back. For the last two nights she has been sneaking out of her room after everyone has gone to bed (otherwise we send her back when we see her) and sleeping on the couch. Why she can sleep on the couch with no pillows or blankets and not in her bed is beyond me--or her. She claims to have no memory of doing any of this even when I find her sacked out in the living room in the morning. We had a long talk about it the night before and she came up with an elaborate strategy for returning the offender to bed while not admitting that she is the offender in question. (The strategy works but obviously not permanently.)

The lawn mower has been repaired, returned and used. The black snake no longer has to lift its head to peer around before deciding which way to go. I watched it last week lift about four inches off the ground before it could see in any direction. It then slithered off to the woodpile.

The "Princeton" is growing out. My part is back and I must occasionally brush my hair or it will rise up on its own to form a ridge from front to back which, although much the style with the kids these days, doesn't work well with gray hair and a beard.

Under Alien Skies

As we ease out of Rainy Season we've been getting evening clouds, beautiful billowing cumulus towers that sometimes bring lightning, sometimes rain, but mostly just block the sunset.

Last night the clouds in the west covered the horizon from end to end. However, there was a break in the overcast directly overhead. The lowering sun cast long wavelength light on to the sides of the thunderhead above which reflected some of it straight down to us.

The result was a red light that came in under a dark sky painting the grass brunt orange and the houses deep coral. The trees, everything that poked above the horizon, were silhouetted and other shadows went stark black. I can imagine a half-terraformed Mars, still mostly desert with it's matching sky, looking much like this.