We’re expecting our first tropical weather of the season this weekend. That means a lot of rain.
A friend saw my posting about the house where I grew up. He’s an artist, so he sent along a watercolor he made years ago of the house in autumn with that he calls Maple Street Spinners, “…when the twirling seeds of the tree in your front yard began to fall each year.”
Thank you, Michael Ives.
Well, this went sideways for Trump and his minions:
PHOENIX — After months of delays and blistering criticism, a review of the 2020 election in Arizona’s largest county, ordered up and financed by Republicans, has failed to show that former President Donald J. Trump was cheated of victory, according to draft versions of the report.
In fact, the draft report from the company Cyber Ninjas found just the opposite: It tallied 99 additional votes for President Biden and 261 fewer votes for Mr. Trump in Maricopa County, the fast-growing region that includes Phoenix.
The full review is set to be released on Friday, but draft versions circulating through Arizona political circles were obtained by The New York Times from a Republican and a Democrat.
Late on Thursday night, Maricopa County, whose Republican leaders have derided the review, got a jump on the official release by tweeting out its conclusions.
“The county’s canvass of the 2020 General Election was accurate and the candidates certified as the winners did, in fact, win,” the county said on Twitter. It then criticized the review as “littered with errors and faulty conclusions.”
TL;DR: Biden got more votes than originally reported.
It makes me wonder if they’re going to insist on further audits in Pennsylvania and Texas.
Tropical Update: TS Sam is moving to the northwest, but at this point it doesn’t look like it’s going to come near populated land.
This is the next storm that could become a hurricane that could get close to the mainland. Its name will be Sam.
Friends along the Gulf Coast, brace yourselves for Ida.
Fred is dissipating. Grace is tracking across earthquake-ravaged Haiti and up the spine of Cuba, staying off the mainland of Florida.
The National Weather Service has issued a tropical storm and flash flood warning for South Florida until Saturday night thanks to Fred.
The Florida Keys and a swath of Southwest Florida were placed under a tropical storm watch Thursday as weak but very wet Tropical Depression Fred continued to skirt the north coast of Cuba.
Fred, though ragged and “poorly disorganized,” was expected to regain tropical storm strength as it crosses the Florida Straits Friday. But it’s main threat to South Florida this weekend will be heavy rains, with the bulk of it expected Saturday.
The National Hurricane Center, in its 8 p.m. advisory Thursday, said Fred was drenching Cuba and Hispaniola on Thursday and was expected to pass over the Florida Keys sometime Saturday.
Meanwhile, as Covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths surge to record numbers, the governor is out in Nevada campaigning. That’s after he backed down from his threat to cut the pay of superintendents and school boards who did not bend to his will. That’s because it’s an empty threat (not to mention illegal). But that’s the way it is with bullies: when confronted, they chicken out and blame someone else.
At least we’re sure of his priorities: he is more interested in running for president than he is in running the state, even if he has to kill people.
Have a nice weekend.
Fred is tracking west, away from Miami, but it’s gonna get wet here this weekend nevertheless.
It looks like we’re going to get some heavy weather this weekend thanks to Fred. At this point, it doesn’t look to develop to a you-know-what, but things change rapidly this time of year. As of the 5:00 p.m. AST update, it looks like Miami is on the edge of the cone.
We’re already halfway through July and I’m still catching up on stuff I did — or meant to do — in June. At school, we’re already having leadership meetings for the new school year. But this year we’ll have all the students back in the classroom.
As is typical of this time of year in Miami, it’s raining a lot. Here’s a view of what was coming down earlier this week at school.
But that leads to views like this:
Enjoy your weekend if you have one.
8:00 p.m. ET 07/06/21: The track shows Hurricane Elsa as a Category 1 coming up the west coast of Florida with a possible landfall near Tampa.
Last Friday I was reporting in from a hotel room in Valdez, Alaska. This Friday I’m in a hotel room in Fort Myers, Florida, where I came with a friend to see a play in a theatre that might do a play of his. We had fun driving over in a rented Camaro convertible, dampened by rain about half the time. But it was fun to drive a car that lights up like a smartphone and has a more complicated top-down process than a open-heart surgery, including raising the “cargo shield.” I still love my Mustang. That’s my friend Craig in the driver’s seat. Looks good.
Now for the fun stuff. You-know-what season has started, and here comes the first one that is sneaking up on Florida: Tropical Storm Elsa. I am hoping it stays clear of us; we’ve had enough of the rain lately. Feh.
We’ll be heading back home later today.
There’s a lot going on.
Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit.
We finally had a thunderstorm last night here in my part of Florida. This was the opening act because it’s already getting hot and humid, which will last until October.
Sombra likes to watch the rain.
Red sky at morning.
I could take six more weeks of this kind of winter, as opposed to what’s slamming into the Northeast.
The 2020 hurricane season officially ends today after a record thirty named storms came through in the North Atlantic alone. Here in South Florida we dodged the bullets, but the Gulf Coast from Texas to Alabama were hit hard on at least four occasions, and that says nothing about the storms that hit in the Pacific, devastating the Philippines and Asia.
But climate change is a hoax, right?
By the way, just because the calendar marks the end of the season doesn’t mean it pulls the switch on tropical disturbances. There have been many times when storms spin up during the months between December and June, and it’s even showing up in harsher winter weather in the temperate zones.
The hurricane season never really ends.
Eta is making a run towards Florida. It’s back to being a tropical storm, and we are still expecting heavy rains and wind here in the Miami area today and tomorrow. Miami-Dade County Public Schools has cancelled classes for Monday.
Isaias is still a tropical storm but could become a hurricane again by the time it gets to the Carolinas, and it’s on track to go through New Jersey, New York, and New England as a heavy weather system.
Isaias is a tropical storm now, moving up the Eastern Seaboard, and will probably hit New York City on Tuesday.
On top of everything else here in Florida, we have Tropical Storm Isaias to look forward to.
The state is closing Covid-19 testing sites because of the approaching storm.
Just in time for the AACA Winter Nationals, a cool front passed through South Florida overnight to bring cool temperatures — for Miami — and 0% chance of rain from now through Sunday.
The worst part of a car show in South Florida can be the heat and humidity, even in winter. But for our show participants, many who are coming from up north, this is the kind of weather that makes them look for real estate down here. Only then do we break the news about the traffic. It took me an hour to get from the host hotel to my house before rush hour, and it’s 19 miles. On the expressway. And yes, the irony of the fact that we’re hosting a car show is not lost on me.
In case you’ve forgotten, this is what I’m taking to the show: my 1988 Pontiac 6000 Safari wagon, going for its fifth Repeat Preservation Driver Participation badge.
For those of you who care, Driver Participation class means it is not judged on the 400 points AACA uses to judge cars in other classes, but on the overall originality of the car and its maintenance as a car that has been and often remains a daily driver. It’s not a trailer queen — I drive it to the shows (and sometimes actually get there) — and I haven’t spent $100,000 on restoring it back to factory original.
What is fun about the Pontiac is that it draws crowds who tell me that they had one just like it or that they have fond memories of riding in the one their moms drove to take them to school or soccer practice or on family trips. And I hear a lot of “they don’t make these anymore.” No, they don’t. The SUV and the minivan have relegated the station wagon, once the most popular body style, at least in terms of sales, to the automotive memory banks. Seeing one like mine — which in itself is a rare find, since the Pontiac version of the GM A-body run in the 1980’s and ’90’s had the lowest production figures — is unusual at a car show, especially a national meet. There will be plenty of Corvettes, Mustangs, foreign and exotic and rare nameplates like Alvis and Auto-Union, but I’m pretty sure that mine will be one of very few wagons — fake wood grain or not — on the field tomorrow.
