So I'm going on my fourth dry season here in South Florida. I say dry season because we don't have summer and winter. Here in South Florida we have the wet season and the dry season. And something I have learned about these seasons is that they change overnight. In California and the rest of the country the weather/seasons change gradually, well not here.
I knew the dry season was starting last night so I decided to take a bike ride to Shark Valley this morning. This was the most miserable ride I have ever had there. I have never had a trip to Shark Valley without seeing an alligator or hundreds, even a thousand in one day. Today I saw just one, a big one, about 11 feet long and quite a chubbo. I think this is because even the alligators knew it's too cold this morning. It's a little cooler in the Everglades then here in Miramar so it might have been as cool as 55 this morning. That's not bad, but the wind made it miserable. Luckily I grabbed a long sleeve shirt that has been stashed behind my seat for months because if I wouldn't have taken it I would probably be pretty sick right now. I was storming towards the tower this morning averaging 14.8 mph. That's pretty fast. But the way back killed me and brought my trip average down to 9.3 mph. It only took me half an hour to get to the tower but it took me 1 hour and 36 minutes to make the whole loop. The wind was so strong coming back I was having a hard time keeping the bike moving at all!
So while I was biking I just keep thinking about how effing weird it is how five months of weather changes overnight....
The first year I was here during the onset of the dry season it came with a tropical storm, Tropical Storm Noel, which skirted the coast offshore, around the Bahamas. I surfed that storm, a lot of fun. That day it went from super muggy to dry and warm. So I was wondering if the seasons changed the same every year. The answer is kind of. The always go from muggy to dry overnight, but not always hot to cooler.
The begining of May is usually the driest time of the year here until mid-late May when the rain just comes in one day and keeps coming back every day for a month. Then we usually get a break from mid July-mid August, only getting rain a couple times a week if that, then the rain season picks up and goes out with a bang...
Well yesterday was a muggy day. It was 86 and the dew point was 75. For those who don't know, the dew point is total moisture in the air, relative humidity is just saturation and hotter air holds a lot more moisture therefore relative humidly doesn't represent saturation. All throughout the wet season the dew point hardly changes, ranging from 70-75. Yesterday was no exception we have had near record breaking heat this week getting up to 93 right ahead of the low front. Then the low front came and bam, what a change. The dew point in Riverside, California right now is 57 degrees. Any guess what it is here, just 24 hours after being at 75 for five months straight? The dew point is 42 degrees! We hit an all time low for October 18th this morning. The record was 59, we hit 58. The lowest high temperature on record for this day was 77 degrees in Miami, today shattered that record when it only got up to 70. They were forcasting 80, I guess they didn't see a new record coming. And that's how it is here, one extreme to the other in just a day.
So for those of you that think Florida is muggy, it's only muggy in the wet season. The dry season is actually quite pleasant, just a couple degrees warmer than a San Diego summer and mostly sunny. After getting home from my miserable bike ride this morning and getting a hot shower and a nap I can say that the weather is very nice today. I opened my windows for the first time in months, enjoyed the breeze while I cleaned the house, and I don't have to run the ac tonight...
No comments:
Post a Comment