2 Areas of Interest in the Tropics As I Begin to Celebrate the Year 5770

A little short on time today as I am busy baking and cooking various sweet delights for the Jewish New Year that begins at sundown tonight. The year is 5770 on the Jewish Calendar.

We are going into the New Year with no named storms in the Tropics. That's rare. One of my first Jewish New Year memories was in Temple, the old Beth El in Miami and it began to pour, strong, heavy, tropical rain. Old timers stared at the windows and had this look on their face, because to old Miami Jews the Jewish New Year is forever entwined with hurricanes and threatening storms. The windows were stained glass, yet you could still see the shadow of the rain pounding the windows hard. I walked out towards to the door as Bobbi is want to do even as a little girl, to stare at the rain. Old timers were gathered on the steps talking on previous years when it rained. Some old man, looked up at the sky as we huddled under a small awning, partially getting wet as we watched the deluge continue and he said quietly, "Jewish New Year and Hurricanes, they always go together!"

It was only years later when researching the Great Miami 1926 Hurricane that I realized that it hit Miami on Yom Kippur, one of the holiest days in the Jewish Year explaining the look of awe and remembrance in the eyes of the old man staring up at the sky and the palm trees nearby bending in the wind.

Miami seems to have escaped such a tropical complication this year and my friends there will be celebrating as will I up here with new friends and some family who are driving in as I type this blog entry.

The house smells of freshly baked Challah (my husband baked it.. not me) and cakes I baked and Pineapple Upside Down Kugel and Apricot, Orange, Honey Baked Chicken and Yellow Rice and Fresh Green Peas and Baked Butternut Squash... and well ... a lot of sweet things.



And, my eyes keep going drifting over to the Water Vapor Loop as the remains of Fred are moving west towards Florida and the US Coastline. Could it possibly regenerate over the holiday weekend? I wonder. A lot of people wonder. Amazing to see one small, closed remnant low track that far west and yet not dissipate and yet to have it blow up now into a named storm would be an ironic twist of fate and yet... tropical weather and the Jewish Holidays always seem to go together I've been told. Another low is further out and has a higher chance of developing it seems but both seem long shots. Though, long shots sometimes pay off and well..you never know.

The official statement from the NHC is one of low probabilities but they do leave the door open for something to develop over the weekend.

I'll be back Sunday Night after sundown when the holiday ends.

Till then...wishing you sweet things and good times, health to enjoy your wealth and a wonderful, fantastic and incredible 5770!

See you on the other side.... L'Shana Tova Bobbi
Ps... if you want a real treat... slice an apple up and dip it in honey and think good thoughts for a good sweet year ;)