Life's a Coast

Note and a word of caution for anyone in the area. A friend in the local medical community has informed us that a case of viral dengue fever has surfaced in Dade county (Miami) and possibly Palm Beach county (West Palm Beach). Although this has not and likely will not be publicized until the problem has grown much worse, we have noted that the dengue fever problem in Key West has been in the news lately, indicating that five percent of residents (about 2,000 people) now have it in their blood as carriers of the disease -- when a carrier is "bitten" by a mosquito, the mosquito can pass it along to others, and that is how the disease has been spreading since first found in 27 people there in the fall of 2009 (so, from 27 victims to 2,000 in less than a year and consider the "exponentially cascading" effect and lastly that there is no prevention or cure for dengue...). As a result, we will be avoiding getting out for sunrises and sunsets, or much of anything else, when there is not much of a breeze -- the mosquito that transmits dengue fever, the "Asian Tiger", actively feeds all day and all night (not just at sunrise and sunset), is not a swamp dweller and conversely inhabits areas populated by humans, and is not as stupid as normal mosquitoes (which fly around ears and face before biting) and conversely operates in "stealth mode" (very difficult to detect until after it bites). UPDATE: local health officials have finally confirmed this and have issued an advisory; link to article on the advisory, and Dengue fever killing dozens in Caribbean, reaching epidemic stage.

Clouds from the frontal edge of Tropical Storm Bonnie were moving in from the the Atlantic at sunset...

Another day in the 90's, but humidity was tolerable, and at sunset there was a nice cool breeze to keep the nasty mosquitoes and pesky no-see-ums grounded...

After a blistering, wet month of May, followed by a cooler and drier than normal June, we are experiencing record or near record heat for the last several days along with occasional thunderstorms but still drier than normal for the "rainy season"...

July 05 2010 - The "rainy season" finally arrived over a month late this year, but is making up for the below average rainfall during June's very August-like heat wave, with day and night long deluges of downpours over the Independence Day holiday weekend, raining out beach-goers every day and yielding cool temps in the mid 70's. Weird weather continues here, like everywhere...

The video guy caught just this one short clip, right in between multiple lightning strikes and earth-shaking thunder, and right before hightailing it back to shelter. Gotta be a bad storm if the vid guy don't like it -- he said it was the 3 to 4 lightning strikes at one time right across the waterway that rattled him into scooting outta there...

Above video appears similar to video from 26th, but sunsets often look similar from one day to the next, and have verified that it was not from same sunset at a different time...

Above video depicts the reverse outflow band of tropical storm Alex passing from southwest to the northwest; Alex was crossing the Yucatan peninsula at the time...

For the last week or so, the high temps have been in the mid to upper 80's with the overnight lows in the mid 70's, with no noticeable humidity, very comfortable for natives. Plenty of sunshine, but showers can pop up any time of the day or night here, and that is what has been happening, as we are at the start of the rainy season, and shower and storm activity will gradually pick up from this point on...

Another gorgeous day but still cool only up into the mid 70's for high temp -- the weather peeps here are finally declaring that so far this has been the coldest month of March here ever, but we already knew that...

This form of exercise is called paddle boarding, and is often observed on the ocean when the waters are calm. At sunset, a cloudy squall line from a cool front was rolling into the area off of the everglades, the southern tail of the major blizzard up along the east coast...

A highly unusual day here today, as we were not blessed with any sunshine at all, an especially rare cloudy-all-day-long day for this time of year. They are talking about some kind of out of the ordinary summer like conditions out in the gulf continuing to roll in from the west over the Everglades, resulting in cloudy, rainy conditions in the middle of our supposedly sunny and warm "dry season".

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