Thursday, February 18, 2016

Key West - El Nino weakens

The Shipwreck Treasure Museum, a lookout tower
The spat of strong winds and low temperatures in Florida is an after effect of the unusually strong El Nino in the Pacific. In a front that passed through Key West a few days ago that gave us 40 kt wind, there were three tornadoes around the Miami/Ft Lauderdale area. Two boats were overturned that were at anchor (everyone was safe) and power was out to thousands. The report is that the current El Nino is weakening but not gone yet. I would hope that the trip north and next fall will see more normal weather conditions, more like we've seen the last five years (not counting this year). One can hope.

Love the flowers
With the current highs around 72, it's still about 5 degrees cooler than normal but with full sun that's pretty good. It's good walking weather, we get much more exercise here in Key West than we ever would up north in the winter temperatures. We walked over to Duval Street which is always interesting. There was a cruise boat docked so the downtown area was flooded with people. They spend their money on souvenirs and perhaps a few tours but they don't patronize the local restaurants since all-you-can-eat food is provided on board.  

We met the McKeevers tonight at Schooner Wharf. They're down here for two months too but they arrived the end of December. We'll all go out for a sail if the weather is decent.

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