Our showers & storms will come to end Mon. night from west to east followed by another stretch of "chamber of commerce" weather for the First Coast Tue. through Thu. Nighttime temperatures will drop into the 40s & low 50s...afternoon highs will be in the 70s with nice & low humidity.
Humidity will creep up along with temps. Fri. into the weekend with possibly a few hit-&-miss storms by Sat./Sun. but widespread rain doesn't look to be in the cards anytime soon after Mon. night.
..... which is why I applied a "weed & feed" on my yard about noon. Soaked in nicely -- just what the Dr. ordered (put pressure on myself with my own forecast!).
We've had some strong storms Mon. A tornado warning was issued for parts of Baker County when a motorist reported a funnel cloud near I-10 not far from Sanderson. The image on radar was only marginal but did match up with other storms earlier in the day that produced damage. In this case, no damage was reported in Baker Co. The damage occurred in Suwannee County -- Live Oak -- west of Lake City with more serious damage in Taylor Co. (Big Bend) confirmed by the Tallahassee N.W.S. to be a waterspout that came ashore as a tornado. Here's the storm summary:
PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT...
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TALLAHASSEE FL
440 PM EDT MON APR 28 2008
..TIME... ...EVENT... ...CITY LOCATION... ...LAT.LON...
..DATE... ....MAG.... ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....
..REMARKS..
0106 PM TORNADO DEKLE BEACH 29.85N 83.62W
04/28/2008 TAYLOR FL EMERGENCY MNGR
SEVERAL HOMES DAMAGED BY AN APPARENT WATER SPOUT THAT
CAME ASHORE. MAJOR ROOF DAMAGE WAS REPORTED TO 3 HOMES.
OTHER HOMES HAD MINOR DAMAGE INCLUDING DAMAGE TO PORCHES AND SCREENS AND BROKEN GLASS. THE DAMAGE OCCURRED ON
DEKLE BEACH ROAD...MEXICO ROAD AND PALMETTO ROAD.
While the First Coast will enjoy beatiful weather much of this week, another powerful storm will evolve over the middle of the U.S. producing more spring snow on its cold side & flooding & severe storms on the other (warm) side.
A weekend of family fun. Seems like it's been weeks if not months -- for a variety of reasons -- since I've had a purely family Sat./Sun. It all began Sat. with a noon-hour soccer game followed by several hours at the beach. Despite water temps. only near 70 (just reached the 70 degree threshold the last few days), my 5-yr. old was in the water much of the afternoon. And we had a good lesson: my 5-yr. old was riding a "noodle" in the waves of the water -- probably about 20 feet from the shore. My wife & I were watching her -- as we always do when our kids are in the water -- when she became "trapped" between the incoming waves & the outgoing waves. She was floating on her noodle & safe -- not really going anywhere but couldn't make any headway toward shore either. After a minute or two, this really became disconserting for her & she began to yell out to us. Well, my wife went "Baywatch"! running to come to the aid of the 5-yr. old. This wasn't a rip current...just caught between waves not too long after high tide. She was fine, took about a 5 min. break with a few sniffles then was back on the "horse" (in the water!).
Sun. I took the kids to the golf range to break in the their news golf clubs (a Christmas gift so a long time coming). Wow...what an experience. They really liked their shiny new clubs &,
of course, had lots of questions about what the different numbers on the clubs meant, how to hold the club, etc. Now...they need a real(!) instructor, but I showed them some of the basics, & they really enjoyed it & got into it. Swing easy didn't mean a lot to my 5-yr. old, & I'm surprised she didn't hit herself in the back of the head a couple times! She had this habit of wanting to watch the head of the club as she took the club back -- tough to keep your eye on the ball that way! Anway...we had fun, & the girls can be decent I think....once that get some real instruction! I'd say it won't be long before my girls are beating me on the course, but that's not really saying all that much. Fore!!
After golf, it was off to the Jax Zoo & Gardens. I thought the zoo might be less crowded later in the afternoon but not so -- it was packed. We were talking all the way there about the delicious sno biz we were going to have -- which flavor, etc. (this is a glorified snow cone but much, much better -- a real fine ice with flavoring -- over priced [$3] but worth every bite & nice & cooling on a very warm afternoon). So when we finally got into line, I see the sign that says "credit card machine broken". Oh no -- this must be a snow job...a sno biz crisis! I didn't have much cash, none in the car. But after asking around, I found an ATM near the front entrance. This was well worth the 20 min. hike (10 min. there & 10 min. back). Thank goodness for the ATM...I envisioned scooping elephant dung just to try to come up with enough money for our favorite zoo treat. (If you're interested...the sno biz kiosks are along the sidewalk as you approach "Range of the Jaguar" & in "Play Park").
The girls & I also spotted an interesting plant in "Play Park"...something we'd like to try to grow in our own yard. A quick email to Bob Chabot, director of Horticulture, to find out what the plant is: "The plant we were talking about is Aristolochia littoralis or Dutchman’s Pipe. The flowers can get really large 8” – 10”. It is also a host plant for the pipevine swallowtail butterfly, so don’t be surprised to see it crawling with caterpillars. It will die down to the ground most winters but quickly grows back in spring."
What caught our eye is that the blooms -- when closed -- hang down like a ball but then open up widely with a bright yellow middle surrounded by deep purple which is surrounded by a white/purple mix to the edge. Pretty cool plant & apparently easy to grow on the First Coast. Get info. by clicking here.
The girls were asleep within 5 min. of getting in the car, & I enjoyed my best "family weekend" in a long time.
