The Great Florida Desert

In the past few years, hurricanes notwithstanding, I have seen my part of northern Florida turn from an almost swampy, wet area into a near desert. Recently, while watching my daughter play a game of flag football in her league, I noticed that anytime anyone ran or fell on the ground, a large cloud of dust would kick up around them. It reminded me of that terrible Dust Bowl period back in the thirties in the southwestern United States. And it also made me wonder how dry we are going to get here in northern Florida. When I moved into my house in 1989, the ground on which it stood was very wet, and often, during the then-common rainy periods, became very mushy and swamp-like. Starting around the late nineties, though, I have rarely seen the ground get very saturated with water. In 1998, northern Florida was inundated, not with flood waters, but rather with widespread forest fires. And since then, each year has seen dire warnings go up about fire dangers. This year is no different. I am not what you would call a lawn and garden enthusiast, and I pretty much let nature take its course with my lawn. And other than keeping it mowed, there has always been the same concentration of grass in it. Until this year. The last time I mowed my lawn, I experienced the same flying dust I saw at my daughter’s football game. We are drying up here. And the storms that we used to be so accustomed to getting on a daily basis are simply not materializing. In most other parts of the world, the latitude I live on (about 30 degrees North) is either ocean or desert. And the way things are shaping up, either ocean or desert may be the future for my beloved state of Florida!

But, as if to prove me wrong, yesterday afternoon we were hit by a severe thunderstorm, suddenly knocking the temperature down from 96 to 66! Yippee! Maybe tomorrow will be a repeat performance (I hope it's minus the lightning and tornado threats, though).