I worked in the yard from 4:15 PM to 5:30 PM, watching the sky darken earlier than sunset. Only got one barrel of Hurricane Ian yard refuse cut and packed. Loads more to do. And then, the first drops of Hurricane Nicole’s outer bands spit on me.
Came in, watched the weather reports, and it’s looking like the entire bottom half of Florida, both coasts, will have 3-5 days of non-stop rain.
I feel for the people on the storm ravaged West Coast. They have to be in disbelief. A hurricane in November! I’ve been down here for 32 years now and this is our first November hurricane in memory.
My wife and I are leaving tomorrow evening in what will be heavy rain for our hotel room in Weston. Early Wed. morning, we spend a couple of hours at Cleveland Clinic.
After the big consult, we will not be staying over another night. We’re getting on the road immediately as visibility decreases up there. (I went storm chasing once in 100-120 MPH winds, and brother, I know what to watch for to not try and make a dash back to the Keys if this Hurricane upgrades to a 4 or 5. (Not likely.)
Still, planning ahead, we willl take old Krone Road (997) home instead of the Turnpike down to the jumpoff from Homestead to the Keys. As an old hand at this, I learned a long time ago to leave the interstates and turnpike when millions are fleeing a storm. Worse still, being on a busy interstate when blackout and whiteout conditions happen due to weather is much more dangerous than Krone Road and its many stoplights.
That’s our plan A. Will let you know if we are forced into a Plan B
We went for a somewhat breezy walk along the beach and were thankful we had already turned back when a wall of hard rain hit us. It was a good laugh. The water is increasingly turning into white foam and the storm is still a long way away.
Today’s SpaceX launch was delayed to later in the week. No surprise.
Thinking about dinner… we have a lot of food in the fridge…
Rob, we just got back from Weston. Rained hard all day up there, but when we started home for the Keys, the last of the hurricane had moved on from my beloved archiplelago. Grey skies. No rain down here win gusts up to 20 MPH tonight. That’s it. Nicole kept moving Northward as the cone moved around.
No flooding in Weston. Very light traffic. People hunkering down at home per the governor’s advice.
MIAMI — After nearly three days of high winds and tides, Florida’s late-season brush with Nicole — first as a hurricane and then as a tropical storm — left dozens of counties with downed trees and power lines, flooded buildings, broken piers, scoured roads and at least a handful of homes partially washed away.
As a Category 1 storm at its strongest, Nicole did not exactly break records for wind ferocity or storm surge height, but it came on the heels of devastating Category 4 Hurricane Ian a mere six weeks earlier.
The one-two punch, on already eroded beaches and swollen rivers, made a mild storm all the more devastating. The hardest hit spots were along the coast of east Central Florida, where Nicole’s waves stripped pool decks from condos and laid bare the concrete sheet pilings holding up oceanfront hotels.
