Sunday January 22nd 2017

Today’s focus was the weather. The TV weather talkers have been warning for a couple of days now that severe storms will be arriving at the end of day today. I don’t know the credentials or experience of any of the people providing the forecast. When you’ve been in an area for a long time you usually know where to find the forecast that has the appropriate amount of local history applied to the conservative science coming from the National Weather Service. So I approach the forecast with skepticism and a need to be prepared to over react for safety.

Waves on the Little Manatee River

Palm trees blowing in the wind.

The day started sunny, humid and very windy. The sun was gradually replaced by clouds. The wind blowing through the campground was knocking things like gas grills over and causing patio mats to take flight. I put all of my stuff away yesterday, but some of the other folks didn’t seem to care. They will have a job picking things up tomorrow.

Late in the afternoon the entire area was put under a tornado watch. Storms similar to last nights tornadoes in Mississippi and Georgia were possible across the entire Florida peninsula. Around 4:30 the TV started continuous weather broadcasts as radar was indicating tornadoes north of Tampa, a warning was declared by the National Weather Service. The line of storms was angled southwest to northeast so the front reached the coast north of Tampa first. Around 5:30 a severe thunderstorm warning was announced for my area. The rain fell and the wind howled from around 6 to 6:30 than it let up until around 7:30 when another tornado warning was issued for an area south of here in the North Sarasota area. The main front arrived around 8:30 with another severe thunderstorm warning. That line passed by around nine. It has been fairly quiet since then.

I don’t know what damage has been done in the area. I’m fairly confident that my motorhome came through fine. The TV has indicated that some trees are down here and there, but I haven’t heard a complete report yet. The center part of the state around Orlando may have been harder hit. Tonight’s 11PM news will provide an update.

My biggest complaint is that the storm had to interrupt my enjoyment of the Patriots victory over the Steelers in the AFC championship game. The CBS affiliate interrupted the game whenever a Warning was announced. They tried to accommodate the football fan with split screens, but it’s not the same. I had all the same information they were providing on my phone. The other problem was that heavy rain on the roof of my motorhome makes it impossible to hear the TV without cranking the volume.