Monday, October 24, 2005

Hurricane'd!

To all of you who are e-mailing wondering how things are here:

This is what the sky looked like last night....



A bit ominous, no? I was slightly concerned that we were in for more severe weather than I had planned for. (Geography update: I live in CENTRAL Florida. That means in the middle. Florida is a fairly large state, so CENTRAL is not really that close to SOUTH.) Throughout the night, the wind howled (literally) outside and the rain beat against the window. Still slightly ominous, but also kind of pleasant. If I hadn't been so intent on sleeping, it would have been fun to pull out a favorite novel and read by candlelight. I was actually kind of hoping for just a little power outage.

When morning came, the wind was still howling, the rain still falling, and the sky still ugly. So I decided to head to the office. For those of you thinking I am crazy, you have never experienced the wrath of a Florida summer thunderstorm. Way more rain and something a lot scarier, lightning. Driving in this morning's outer bands of Hurricane Wilma was quite tame in comparision.

At the office, I worked away from a window, just in case those tornado warnings had any validity. When I finally left my windowless cave around 5 pm, I was greeted my about a 20 degree temperature drop and conditions that looked like this:




Not so much scary. It was beautiful outside. Still a little breezy, and a whole lot cooler, which, after many days of 80 degree plus weather, was a welcome feeling.

So Wilma was good to us up here. For those of you who inquired about my family in South Florida, they are all ok. They are experiencing life with no power like millions of others there, but their powerless homes are intact and dry on the inside, which is enough to be thankful for at the moment. There are many others that did not fare as well.

In better storm news, Tropical Storm Alpha has slowed to a trough* and should eventually be absorbed by the remnants of Wilma, so no threat there.


Listening to: a boiling pot of tea...it is cold enough to comfortably drink tea!!
Current Mood: sleepy (actually pretending not to be nervous about getting immunizations tomorrow a.m. ... ouch)

*An elongated area of relatively low atmospheric pressure, usually extending from the center of a low pressure region. That's right. Watch me drop my meteorological knowledge on ya'll. Boo-yah.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

from a floridian, she's right there's nothing to compare to florida's thunderstorms. People here in NC soooo don't know how to drive in the rain! Glad you rode out the storm, it really wasn't all that bad from what I hear from everyone. Take care,

Dee

Anonymous said...

That's a good picture! Those clouds were movin'!