Major Mike’s Musings

Five O'clock Radar

Looks like we’re in the clear. Here’s the radar at around five o’clock. You can hardly see it but we’re right where the little plus with the circle around it is. Click on the image and you can see a larger version.

I drove around earlier (had to get a bulb for my left brake light which had burned out and mail a couple of packages) and observed the results of Fay. There are bushels (probably tons) of Spanish moss on the ground having been blown down from the Live Oak trees. Also all of the Villages ponds are overflowing.

The ponds are used to hold irrigation water. We have two water systems: Potable and irrigation. The potable, of course, is treated, but the irrigation is rainwater and irrigation runoff. We use the irrigation water to irrigate (dah) our yards and The Villages irrigates the golf courses and landscaping. 

The golf course and landscaping sprinklers are running in many places to lower the water in the overflowing ponds. We’ve been on water restrictions for over a year, maybe we’ve finally made up the deficits caused by the recent drought. 

Maybe Fay will be kind enough to turn left into Georgia. They could sure use the rain.

If you’ve been watching the national news or the Weather Channel, you might think we’re drowning from Fay’s heavy rains. Not so. The Central Florida declarations in the media refer to the east coast of Central Florida. We’re in the middle of the state and up until this morning have not had much rain at all…probably less than an inch…since Fay attacked Florida.

Apparently, all that’s about to change. Fay is holding still in the Atlantic¹, but is forecast to begin moving WNW back into Floriada any minute. I think it’s started to move because we’re starting to get some winds and rain.

In a previous post, I made a reference to hearing a tornado warning on our weather radio. In Indiana, there were sirens every couple of miles, at least in Indianapolis there were. We could hear them testing the sirens at 11:00 am every Friday. We occasionally heard them during actual warnings.

Florida has no such sirens. If you want to know if severe weather is approaching, you must tune in on radio or TV. If you loose power, you’re out of luck unless you have a battery powered weather radio. Mine also has SAME, which means I can program it to only give me reports for the counties I choose. I’ve chosen the county in which I live and the adjacent ones, too. When a warning (or test) comes on it first give a loud screeching sound², then a sound like data coming across, then the vocal warning.

The NNOA sends out a test at around 11:00 am and 7:00 pm every Wednesday.

Anyway, so far we’re snug as bugs in a rug.

1. Still lashing the east coast [↩]
2. guaranteed to wake you up and get your heart pounding [↩]

The latest forecast for Fay predicts that she’ll move more easterly than before, missing us entirely. I’ve still got the hatches battened.

She’s moving up the coast. Tropical storm Fay can’t seem to make up her mind¹. First she’s headed right for us, then she’s heading up the western coast, now, she’s headed for us again.

Later this afternoon, we’ll batten down the hatches, bring in the potted plants and potential missiles², and settle in for the storm. Fortunately, so far the winds are forecast to be only 50 mph with gusts to 65 mph at the time it’s supposed to pass over.

So far it looks as though it will arrive in the middle of the night on Tuesday, but that’s been changing, too.

I’ll keep you posted as long as I can get on the internet.

1. Or more likely, the forecasters can’t figure her out. [↩]
2. Like the bird feeder [↩]