FloridaWeather
Today's Forecast:
PARTLY CLOUDY, CHANCE OF SHOWERS, 74 DEGREES
by Jennifer Ammon
Sunny with some clouds. Temperature in the 70's. Does that sound like the weather to you? It does if you live in Florida.
We live where people go to spend their last years, we know. But we take it for granted. Yawn, another sunny day. Think I'll go to the beach. Well, maybe next week.
And it's January.
This is a state where sunscreen and sunglasses are a requirement. And an umbrella. Because we do get rain. Sometimes we get rain in the most unexpected ways. Driving down the street, you see that half of your car is being rained on. The other half is dry as a bone.
Sometimes you drive for a mile in pouring rain, the next mile is sunny and blue skies.
In the fall months, rain comes around about 3 o'clock. You can make your plans that way—"So, I'll meet you after it rains, OK?" Normally it doesn't rain for long. But it does rain hard. Floridians know what it's like to step around mud puddles, to be caught without an umbrella (curses!), to drive through streets full of water. You hope your car won't die on you while it's treading water.
To us, when it drops down to the 50's, it's no longer chilly—it's cold. On the rare occassion it gets down to the 40's, we're freezing. One or two days of pulling out our turtlenecks and leather jackets (for many of us, our old clothes from "the North") may be fun, but after that, we're complaining: Why is it so cold here, isn't this the reason I left (New York) (Ohio) (Massachusetts) (Iowa) (him/her)?
Real Floridians get cold when temperatures drop under 70 degrees. We bring sweaters when we go to the movies because it's cold (68 degrees) in the theaters. We snicker at the Canadians who are still at the beach in the cooler weather, some who are actually swimming, and shake our heads. Poor things just don't know any better. Tsk tsk.
In a state where much of the time the weather is downright nice and uneventful, we do have our storms and hurricanes. And the threat of hurricanes. Just when you get home from the job, your feet up on the table, snacking on a bag of Cheeze Doodles, the weather guy on TV tells you about Hurricane Mohammed, and he's headed right at you. And YOU AREN'T PREPARED!
But you've heard this, what, six times before in the last four months and the hurricane always somewhere else, so you can't get too worked up. What will be will be. You've got your hurricane shutters and your batteries and your two bottles of water, your cans of tuna. You're ready.
And wouldn't you know, just when you've got half the bag of Cheeze Doodles down and you're looking forward to watching the "Millionaire" show, the weather guy says the hurricane's heading to North Carolina.
OK, that's better. No, it's not better, but, well, it's not affecting ME anymore.
The next day it's 77 out, kind of cloudy, possible rain.
Of course, if it does rain, it's not going to happen until 3 o'clock.~
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