The wind kicks up to 20 knots or so where we sit on the shady patio overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. I take a compass heading to point us to Key West, and pull up my Aero Wx app that shows the METARs and TAFs—the weather reports and forecasts—for a slew of Florida airports. The siege of Hurricane Irma has begun, and soon our beloved streets across the Keys will be underwater. With a mojito we toast those bailing out their homes, their livelihoods, their lives, from the wrath of a wicked low, low, low pressure system.
In the words of one the Keys’ most famous denizens, “There ain’t no way to reason with hurricane season.” (Thanks, Buffett.)
Flash forward to Flo: It’s 2018 and nearly to the day we wait across the water for the latest update on Florence’s track. This time, she’s headed for Wrightsville Beach, and I think back to Isabel, 15 years ago, who created a heck of a storm surge up the Mid-Atlantic—though she only made landfall as Category 2. We drove through her ragged edges, in awe of how much power she still packed inland.
Right now, they’re predicting worse for Florence, possibly Cat 4 as she barrels onshore. We hope they’re wrong, and we’ll sacrifice plenty of mint and lime and rum to make sure.
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- Toasting our friends in harm’s way across the ocean
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- A bit breezy on the patio of the Bar Moinho, but not hurricane-force winds
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- Incoming Irma from 2017
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- More stations reporting in Florida from 2017