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Friday, June 1, 2007
Season of Smoke, Season of Rain
A few weeks ago, I was driving northward through Jacksonville when I heard this weather report: "Today, tomorrow: sunny,
mixed with occasional smoke," delivered in a bland tone despite the fact that evacuation orders for areas affected by
the Okefenokee fires were being announced, urgently, on news bulletins.
I thought: is this
what will happen? We'll simply get used to smoke and fire as part of "the weather," the consequence of
drought, which may be arbitrary, but the lack of water in reserve comes from our headlong development and reckless water use,
and a world of behaviors which threaten to culminate in Florida as sandbar. (Yes, I'm more aware of this from
reading the excellent Losing It All to Sprawl, and Brian Sullivan's review of The Swamp.)
On my return south, it was still sunny and smoky in Jax, but as I
came into South Florida, I was shocked to find Palm Beach County looked like the old pictures of Pittsburgh in the 1940s:
I entered thick gloom with, off to the west, an angry glow which I realized, when I checked the clock, was actually the sun--it
was only 5 P.M. The smoke from the fires near Naples, and the smoke from Georgia and North Florida, were being streamed
to us, and stayed that way for days, so that in Miami we slept with the smell and woke with the taste of burning wood.
More recently the wind shifted and the plume headed toward Atlanta. Still, we're getting daily reports of the falling
level of Lake Okeechobee—lower than at any point in its recorded history.
And so, we began to long for the
rain.
Today, it is raining steadily. Of course, this is the first day of "hurricane
season," with all accompanying fanfare: predictions of lots of named storms and proclamations of government preparedness
and 12 days of tax free supply buying. But it helps to remember that "hurricane season" is also "rainy
season."
And rain is wonderful for reading. So if you save a bit on those hurricane
supplies, put it towards something you'll want to read this summer—and perhaps buy an Itty-Bitty Nite Lite for when the lights
go out.
Some new things to read on The Florida Book Review: reviews of David Kirby's latest collection of poems, Enid Shomer's stories in Tourist Season , crime writing by Vicki Hendricks and Ace Atkins, the memoir of musician Bobby Braddock, and our first feature, Keith Ferrell's essay on the career of John D. Macdonald and, especially, his Travis McGee books. We have lots more coming soon.
Meanwhile, take a deep breath of the rain-cleaned air.
—Lynne Barrett
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| (Image from a Florida postcard) |
Weblinks to follow the weather:
www.nhc.noaa.gov - This is the official site of the National Hurricane Center. It's probably the most "official" site on the
web, so if you have trust issues, go here. They've made several improvements since last year, most notably the cool map
on the front and a new small news feed at the top. I'm not sure if they're still not using the "line of uncertainty."
In the past, their maps have been less definitive, with a huge cone, especially for slow-moving storms. Plus, it's not
as colorful, and we all like colors, don't we?
www.wunderground.com/tropical/ - This is Weather Underground's tropical weather site. They are good if you want easy access to a wide range of information,
including things like the "historical" diagram which shows how similar past storms have moved. They have a good
variety of computer models (which are lacking on the NHC), and they're very easy to navigate. They're also the best
source I know of for hurricane blogging - Dr. Jeff Masters blogs about tropical activity pretty consistently, although if
you're a complete beginner he may seem a bit jargonish. Plus, they're the best location for hurricane news if you're
trying to "one-stop shop" for weather info at your mansion on Fisher Island, your home in the Hamptons, the Manhattan
apartment, the London flat and the Chateau on the Loire. On the con side, they are a commercial entity, so there are ads around
the site.
www.skeetobiteweather.com - These guys have very clear diagrams that show not just where the storm will go, but how strong it will be in different
locations. They're also good for more minor systems, as they show "investigation areas" that may develop into
depressions, which neither the NHC nor Weather Underground does. Their historical records, however, have not been updated
since 2005. They have a slightly wider variety of computer models than Weather Underground, though you need to visit both
sites to see all of them. They can be a bit slow in updating (they normally have a 45-minute to an hour lag in updating after
the NHC, as compared to Weather Underground's 5-minute lag), but that's because they end up presenting much more information
with their diagrams. They come across as no-frills, with their relatively plain layout and lack of things like "wind
history" that the other two throw in. --James Barrett-Morison
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