We went to pick up my father this morning. The hospital is done with him.
Hal, a volunteer, came to wheel him down in a chair. Hal has got to be as old as my dad. Isn’t this rolling exit a quaint tradition that can end?
Driving up and back from Boynton Beach to Boca Raton gave me a good chance to watch the Florida sky. It is definitely different than the Connecticut sky. Maybe I’m just more attuned to looking up because I’m a meteorologist, I’ll admit to that. But there is a difference.
Even with high humidity levels, the air here is mainly clear and the sky is mainly blue. Days that would feature haze in Connecticut don’t here.
Still, the real star of the sky is the clouds. They are white and puffy and well defined and tall. These are towering cumulus clouds – a term often seen in airport observations, but never so literally true as here.
Yes, these towering “Cu” produce the numerous thunderstorms found over the peninsula every day. It’s a fair trade. They’re amazing.
Those towering clouds used to rain on us every afternoon at about 4:00 when we first moved to Florida. Nowadays, they build up, but don’t drop rain nearly as often. Whole state is a lot dryer than I remembered from growing up there.
You’re right about the intense blue sky, though–very little haze or fog there for some reason. And when they do get a t-storm they are amazing.
I had an antenna support at my parent’s house that actually went through the house into the ground in a corner of the dining room my parents added on to the back of the house. My dad mounted their TV antenna on it after I and my ham radio gear moved out. Took a direct hit one day–burned all the paint of the 3 inch steel pipe it was made of, but saved the house. Only casualty was that the wiring inside the phone totally vaporized…
Spectacular weather, and the East coast of Florida still gets the most T-storms of anywhere else in the country.
Great photos, Geoff. They brought back memories of the summers (!) I spent in Florida when I was in high school and college, during the years my parents lived in Melbourne Beach. I remember well the 3:00 thunderstorms … you could practically set your watch by them.
I never stopped to think about the “no haze” factor down in FL, but you’re right … the only haze was right down along the shoreline, which made meteor shower viewing difficult even on a clear night. I wonder why there’s no haze there like there is here? Is it an air quality thing?