An incredibly cool Christmas gift for cephalopod fanatics the world over. Enjoy!
Nature, Science, & Mathematics: December 2006 Archives
People elsewhere in the country would laugh themselves silly if they could see those of us basking in the [relative] warmth of Central Florida. Last night and this morning the weather forecasters put on their dire and doomed faces and warned us about bone-chilling and dangerous cold that was coming our way. Last night the temperatures were to plunge to 54 degrees, with a high not much above sixty today. And tonight, horrors! bring in the dogs, batten down the hatches, get out the emergency supplies--the temperature is to plunge into the forties, perhaps resolving at about 42 degrees.
I remember the first year I was hear, my wife and I were wandering around Sea World wearing shorts and a light jacket and the people manning the ticket stations were in parkas, gloves, hats, and even scarves. We had just come from Columbus, Ohio, where the temperatures were at a steady 30-40 degree range, and it was 65 and breezy here in Orlando. We laughed ourselves silly. Unfortunately, the next year, similar circumstances, and we had already adapted--parkas, gloves, and hats at 60 degrees.
No! Not Ft. Lauderdale Snow or Miami Snow, Florida Snow!
84 degrees and the late evening. Across the street my neighbor's yard is covered with Florida snow--25 or so white ibis, strutting across the yard plucking up lizards and small insects as they go. The "dirty" gray snow takes the form of three or four young among the blazing white. We watch, restraining boy from going and chasing them and the snow drifts across the yard. Five sentinel drifts on top of the house rise into the air and the drift speeds up, and then blows away, across the street, above the roofs of the house two down from us, and they're gone.
Just one of the reasons Florida is home.
