Living in Florida has its obvious perks: the sunny weather, the water, the beautiful palm trees. We also have hurricanes. They’re no good whatsoever. So it’s always a celebration to make it to November knowing that we’re ‘out of hurricane season’. It should be a holiday. But this year is proving to be a strange year all thanks to El Niño.
El Niño is an oceanic and atmospheric phenomenon that marks the warm phase of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (totally copying this definition, by the way). It is associated with a band of warm ocean water that develops in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific, including the area off the west coast of South America. In basic terms, it’s a wrench in the weather plans for the globe that comes around every bunch of years. There are perks (maybe less damaging hurricanes), but there’s also days like today. A big band of storms coming at us in the next 30 minutes or so.
You can see from the snapshot I took that this storm means business. I’ll let you know how it goes, but so far some schools have closed schools, others have canceled events. It’s the kind of storm that no one has time for, but Mother Nature is reminding us who’s in charge. So we are ready.
So while Florida is a great to live most of the time, it doesn’t come with it’s fair share of strange moments like today’s storm. Hoping it’s quick and painless, but for those on the coast who’ve been flooded time and time again, I doubt they’re as lucky. Stay safe out there.
