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Friday, June 1, 2007
Season of Smoke, Season of Rain
A few weeks ago, I was driving northward through Jacksonville when I heard this weather report: "Today, tomorrow: sunny,
mixed with occasional smoke," delivered in a bland tone despite the fact that evacuation orders for areas affected by
the Okefenokee fires were being announced, urgently, on news bulletins.
I thought: is this
what will happen? We'll simply get used to smoke and fire as part of "the weather," the consequence of
drought, which may be arbitrary, but the lack of water in reserve comes from our headlong development and reckless water use,
and a world of behaviors which threaten to culminate in Florida as sandbar. (Yes, I'm more aware of this from
reading the excellent Losing It All to Sprawl, and Brian Sullivan's review of The Swamp.)
On my return south, it was still sunny and smoky in Jax, but as I
came into South Florida, I was shocked to find Palm Beach County looked like the old pictures of Pittsburgh in the 1940s:
I entered thick gloom with, off to the west, an angry glow which I realized, when I checked the clock, was actually the sun--it
was only 5 P.M. The smoke from the fires near Naples, and the smoke from Georgia and North Florida, were being streamed
to us, and stayed that way for days, so that in Miami we slept with the smell and woke with the taste of burning wood.
More recently the wind shifted and the plume headed toward Atlanta. Still, we're getting daily reports of the falling
level of Lake Okeechobee—lower than at any point in its recorded history.
And so, we began to long for the
rain.
Today, it is raining steadily. Of course, this is the first day of "hurricane
season," with all accompanying fanfare: predictions of lots of named storms and proclamations of government preparedness
and 12 days of tax free supply buying. But it helps to remember that "hurricane season" is also "rainy
season."
And rain is wonderful for reading. So if you save a bit on those hurricane
supplies, put it towards something you'll want to read this summer—and perhaps buy an Itty-Bitty Nite Lite for when the lights
go out.
Some new things to read on The Florida Book Review: reviews of David Kirby's latest collection of poems, Enid Shomer's stories in Tourist Season , crime writing by Vicki Hendricks and Ace Atkins, the memoir of musician Bobby Braddock, and our first feature, Keith Ferrell's essay on the career of John D. Macdonald and, especially, his Travis McGee books. We have lots more coming soon.
Meanwhile, take a deep breath of the rain-cleaned air.
—Lynne Barrett
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Weblinks to follow the weather:
www.nhc.noaa.gov - This is the official site of the National Hurricane Center. It's probably the most "official" site on the web,
so if you have trust issues, go here. They've improved over time, most notably with better maps and a new small news feed
at the top. In the past, their maps have been less definitive, with a huge cone, especially for slow-moving storms. Their
text descriptions are also very technical and dense. Plus, the site's not as colorful, and we all like colors, don't we?
www.wunderground.com/tropical/ - This is Weather Underground's tropical weather site. They are good if you want easy access to a wide range of information,
including things like the "historical" diagram which shows how similar past storms have moved. They have a good
variety of computer models (which are lacking on the NHC), and they're very easy to navigate. They're also the best source
I know of for hurricane blogging - Dr. Jeff Masters blogs about tropical activity pretty consistently, although if you're
a complete beginner he may seem a bit jargonish. Plus, they're the best location for hurricane news if you're trying to "one-stop
shop" for weather info at your mansion on Fisher Island, your home in the Hamptons, the Manhattan apartment, the London
flat and the Chateau on the Loire. On the con side, they are a commercial entity, so there are ads around the site.
www.skeetobiteweather.com - These guys have very clear diagrams that show not just where the storm will go, but how strong it will be in different
locations. They're also good for more minor systems, as they show details "investigation areas" that may develop
into depressions, which neither the NHC nor Weather Underground does. Their historical records, previously the least complete,
have been updated to include all storms since 2008, bringing them up to par with the others on that front. They have a slightly
wider variety of computer models than Weather Underground, though you need to visit both sites to see all of them. They can
be a bit slow in updating (they normally have a 45-minute to an hour lag in updating after the NHC, as compared to Weather
Underground's 5-minute lag), but that's because they end up presenting much more information with their diagrams. They come
across as no-frills, with their relatively plain layout and lack of things like "wind history" that the other two
throw in. --James Barrett-Morison
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Winners of the 2009 Florida Book Awards Children's Literature Gold
Medal: Joan Hiatt Harlow, Secret of the Night Ponies
Florida Nonfiction Gold Medal: Jack E. Davis, An Everglades Providence: Marjory Stoneman Douglas and the American Environmental Century
Silver
Medal: Carlton Ward, Jr., Florida Cowboys Bronze Medal: Todd
T. Turrell, Naples Waterfront—Changes in Time General Fiction Gold Medal: N.M. Kelby, A
Travel Guide for Reckless Heart.
Silver Medal: Janet Burroway, Bridge of
Sand
Bronze Medal: Ana Menendez, The Last War A. Manette
Ansay, Good Things I Wish You
Michael Lister, Double
Exposure
Popular Fiction Gold Medal:
Glynn Marsh Alam, Moon Water Madness
Silver Medal: Diane A.S. Stuckart,
Portrait of a Lady: A Leonardo DaVinci Mystery
Bronze Medal: Jonthon
King, The Styx
Chris Kuznecki, The Lost Throne
Tim Dorsey, Nuclear Jellyfish
Poetry Gold Medal: Campbell McGrath, Shannon
Silver
Medal: Denise Duhamel, Ka-Ching!
Bronze Medal: Jesse Millner,
Neighborhoods of My Past Sorrow
Peter Meinke, Lines
from Neuchatel
Spanish
Language Book Gold Medal: Juan Cueto-Roig, Veintiún cuentos concisos
Silver Medal: José Álvarez, País y la revolución cubana Young Adult Literature
Gold Medal: Alex Sanchez, Bait
Silver Medal: Rick Yancey, The Monstrumentologist
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