Friday November 11th 2022

Tropical system Nicole is long gone from Florida. Today’s weather pattern is back to a familiar pattern. It was sunny and dry in the morning and the afternoon was filled with pop up rain storms. The temperature was a little above normal in the upper eighties. The weekend is forecast to be cooler.

Today was the first “normal” day this week. Early in the week I was worried about the weather. Then I was preparing for the weather followed by living through the weather. It was a very confusing morning getting back into a normal flow. Later in the day the weather conspired against me. Every time I was about to go out a storm would pop up darkening the sky and soaking the ground. I ended up staying at home all day.

One of the things I did while waiting out today’s pop up storms was review the impact of the latest hurricane on my winter reservations. Hurricane Ian, six weeks ago, put two of my two week stays at Florida State Parks in danger. My question was how much worse Nicole may have made the situation. As of now it doesn’t look like any additional issues have come up.

My biggest concern remains my stay at Myakka River State Park in December. The river was more than five feet above flood stage after Ian and didn’t go below flood stage for several weeks. The river gauge in the park showed a blip from Nicole today, but it remained below flood stage. The original statement on the park web page was “reservations canceled until at least November 20th and probably longer”. Now the statement is “reservations canceled until November 30th and possibly longer”. How much credence should I give to the fact that they only moved it out ten days and changed the “probably” to “possibly”? The other issue is for a reservation at the end of February, so lots of things can dry out by then. Finding an alternative location for December will be difficult. I will probably have to go to northern Florida. An alternative for February will be both difficult and expensive.