Urban Myth: Florida is always warm and balmy...

We're freezing down here! Literally! We were at freezing last night, and tonight we are expected to get around 29. And I am in south Florida, near the Everglades. The rest of Florida is even colder. There are reports of snow flurries around Orlando, frozen ponds in mid to north Florida. It's cold!

I've already had my chenille plant hit by the freeze...
It's the one plant that got hit by the freeze last year, too. Something about that spot makes it vulnerable. But it came back after it was frozen last year, and it will probably come back again this year.

But the poor animals. We went to go out to breakfast this morning, and Trouble (the stray cat) ran off from the front bed where he'd apparently been hiding, looking for a dry, warm spot. I've been worried about him. So I put the dog carrier out back with rugs and towels in it, and covered it with an old sheet.
If he comes around the backyard as he likes to do, maybe he'll take shelter in it.

And I put a small carrier in the front entrance with a towel over it, and left the screen door open.
So he's got a spot out front, too. We'll see whether he uses either, but at least I tried. It is just miserable outside.

Folks: Please bring those animals in. It is way too cold out to responsibly and compassionately leave your animals outside. Even down here in "balmy" Florida.

Florida Weather

Here is a typical summer storm in Florida. You can be driving along with the sun shining, go 1/4 mile down the road and see this...


As I drove on, I came to a stop at the STOP sign, and found the winds were strong (50 mph gusts). The stop sign shook as if in a tropical storm.

As I got closer to home, I found that a couple of fires had been started by the lightning. Notice at the end of this video how the rain has almost stopped and then lets loose in a downpour as another sheet passes over.


Now I go one street over to my street, and it isn't raining there. However you can see down the road that the rain is coming. In Florida, you can see the rain coming before it gets to you. We've stood outside and watched the rain coming at us across a parking lot. As kids, we would ride our bikes ahead of the rain, slow down, let it catch up with us, then try to race it again. Down here you "race the rain".


By the time I pulled into my driveway, it was raining too hard to get out of the car.


While I waited in the car (listening to one of my favorite songs, Edwin McCain singing Greatest Fan of Your Life), the radio mentioned the storms.


Within a couple of minutes, things were flooded.


I finally had to bite the bullet and make a run for it. Gotta love Florida! This actually wasn't too bad. I've found since moving to Cape Coral (just a few miles from where I used to live) that it is quite windy (flat scrubland with few trees to break up the wind coming in off of the Gulf of Mexico), so I'm getting used to it being windy all of the time. And as for the rain, there's times that the summer rains get so strong that you can't see 10 feet in front of you. However this was pretty major. There are trees down and power out in some places. Just a little excitement for the day. (BTW: The news last night showed some of the damage from the storm. Turns out there were four fires near my place sparked by lightning, and the winds got strong enough to uproot a shed and send it flying, and to pick up a trampoline and leave it on a rooftop.)