Fall Colors

Its hard to tell its Fall in Florida aside from the colors on the landscape and the longer shadows cast by the rapidly retreating sun. The temperature is still summer like (in the low 90s F.).



Today there were many high clouds streaming across the peninsula from the distant Hurricane Jova that slammed into Mexico's Pacific coast last night. Jova was a category 2 storm with 100 mph winds when it made landfall near Manzanillio.



Despite the summer-long drought there is some goldenrod blooming here and there which also makes it look a little like Fall. The rains we had last weekend came too late for most of the wildflowers, however.



The Hunter's Moon looked a little Fall like. . .



. . .but it was quite sweaty and buggy shooting these images at dusk. . .



. . .and of course there's the giant black cat sitting in my favorite chair that reminds me that Halloween is only a couple weeks away. Dell-Roy Jackson is now a whopping 22 pounds of cat-fat and fur. He prefers my chair to anywhere else.



I put rain coats on the Jack O' Lanterns for a couple days. . .they looked kind of sad.



They're perkier and bright without their coverings. The Rattlebox (Crotalaria spectabilis) didn't fare so well in the little storm we had (see behind the Jack O' Lanterns). They're all leaning at some similar angle.



Despite all the media hype about our recent rain, we remain painfully dry. This is the lake today. While there is a puddle out there. . . it is still at least 8 feet (2.5 meters) lower than normal.



Many of the computer models continue to predict that a strong tropical disturbance capable of becoming a tropical depression could form in the Western Caribbean or extreme southern Gulf of Mexico early next week. Some of the spin and moisture for this potential storm could come from Post-Tropical Cyclone TWELVE-E, which formed in the Eastern Pacific yesterday, just offshore of the Mexico/Guatemala border. The remnant weather system is currently over Mexico just south of the Bay of Campeche.