Wednesday February 8th 2017

Last night the storm front that brought tornadoes to Louisiana and Mississippi earlier in the day arrived here on the north east Florida coast. It had calmed down a little by the time it got this far east, but still brought severe thunderstorms. Around ten last night the sky opened up, the wind blew and lightning flashed. It lasted for a couple of hours, then showered off and on during the night. There was at least one tornado reported to the west of here.

Sky between the storms

The power went out over night, but I didn’t know until I saw the microwave flashing this morning. The microwave is one of the things that doesn’t get its power from the inverter circuit. The lights and the outlets all get power from the batteries via the inverter. When I checked the battery status this morning, they were in fast charge mode, so the power was out long enough to draw them down significantly.

Today was a changeable day. It started cloudy, cleared a little, then the clouds moved back in. The temperature peaked in the mid 70s. A few showers have moved through the area and it is starting to fog in tonight. The humidity and lack of a good breeze has kept it uncomfortable all day.

I feel lucky that the weather didn’t impact me more than it did. One of the plans I was considering for my travels to the west would have had me staying in New Orleans this week. That general area got hit by several tornadoes yesterday. I’m now trying to understand the long range weather forecast for the south. I still need to get across the country to Arizona by March 1st. The Weather Channel and AccuWeather websites have been getting a few visits.