Hurricane Season ... Wedding ... Thoughts on Hurricane Preparation...

 

Officially  nothing going on ....

...says the NHC.

2 red eyes looking at Miami.

Moisture in the Caribbean obviously.

Moisture in Miami.....

Rainy Season definitely started.... 

..view from the rooftop in Aventura where the ceremony was.

I was at a wedding last night for my best friend's son.

The clouds rolled in, dark and threatening.

That's towards the East .....

...to the West it was sunny, blue skies.

Miami is like that.

The radar showed it moving in...

Several guests went in and watched through the window.

Or stood under the narrow roof ledge while raindrops fell.

I stayed outside because well ... why not?

I chase storms I'm not gonna run because I'm in a gown.

A turquoise chiffon flowing gown.

Great wedding.

Then inside for 4 or more hours of nonstop dancing.

To clarify all of this for y'all:

I have two best friends and they were both there as one was the mother of the groom. We spent years in Miami chasing thunderstorms, monsoons and any tropical weather we could find. We have talked incessantly about hurricanes before the season, during the season and after the season. At the end of the wedding we talked intensely about thoughts on this year's season that I won't share here with you but possibly Jim Williams who she feels has the most accurate pre-season forecasts! 

Our other best friend has energy you can't imagine... like a Cat 5 Hurricane she yanks you up and dances for hours and we all had a wonderful time. Yes, the clouds moved in from the ocean from that mid level Bahama Blob just offshore. To the West it was clear skies and white clouds, to the East it was dark and threatening and no that is not a filter up above. The brothers of the groom just stood there staring like "wow great clouds" and "yep it's gonna pour" but to be honest it rained lightly through the wedding ceremony with no wind but steady rain but no it did not pour like a monsoon. It was freaky windy before when I took that picture though...  Everyone looked at me and asked if it was going to rain before it rained and I smiled weakly and checked the radar that showed the whole mess was moving West and would be over us in minutes. I nodded. People not into storms ran for cover and the rest of us stood there with umbrellas and yellow slickers that the catering company gave out (because Miami they have them ready mind you) and it was beautiful. I was able to take pictures and video but my gown was soaked from the hips down but because it's Miami it dries fast. 

Chassidic weddings are known to start early and end late, and it did indeed. I was there at 5 PM we didn't leave til 12:30 AM and I danced for most of that time. Understand this was the FIRST wedding or event I have been to since Covid began and this was the first time I wore my fairly comfortable black dress HIGH HEEL pumps and I'm going to rest a lot today...    

A family member surprised the couple with bagpipe players who showed up and played their heart out as Chabad Yeshiva Students danced wildly and everyone loved it.  Yeshiva is basically Rabbinical College and yeah they are great dancers. Only in Miami... 

Hard to say goodbye to my best friends, but hopefully I'll be back in late July for another wedding. Now that we tested the vaccine as I am fully vaxed and have been for a while ..... we will see how good this vaccine really is because it was old school, before the pandemic partying. I'm grateful, appreciative and not hung over but I still here the pounding music in my head. Can't really feel my feet but had a blast.

At the end of the wedding the Mother of the Groom talked wildly, intensely, passionately about the Hurricane Season. No really what she said is not for prime time but if you are a chaser or forecaster than you can only imagine what she said. I'll leave it to your imagination. I giggled thinking how she's waxing poetic about hurricanes as the guest are leaving, limping out tired from dancing totally clueless what she's whispering in my ear making me laugh.

This morning I attempted one last time to get a Miami Sunrise. I took some hardcore Nitro Miami espresso can out of the fridge, tip toed around my youngest daughter on a blow up mattress in the living room (so we could sleep on her bed as she insisted) and went out onto the balcony that faces the Port of Miami, Biscayne Bay and Miami Beach off in the distance. There were clouds there obviously (see satellite image above) and much abundant moisture in the air as well as a strong breeze making the palm trees dance as if well.. as if it was Hurricane Season. 

Volcano Sunrise by BobbiStorm

(and Mother Nature)

I grew up in Miami, I lived on Miami Beach 3 blocks from the ocean at Mid Beach across from the Fountainblue and Eden Roc and let me tell you 8 times out of 9 you don't see the sunr rise out of the ocean you watch as it emerges from a cloud bank over the water. Be it at the morning after a Prom or a party or when you just walk over to catch it from your house because you woke u early enough  .... there are almost always clouds this time of year and there have been every day this week. It's not Key West.......though there too you get a cloudy type of sunrise usually.  The sun rises through the cloud bank in stages lighting up parts of the sky, bit by bit casting light in different directions. Mind you before the sun is fully up it's cool, comfortable and the breeze is delicious. Once the sun comes up you run inside for AC and take a shower as the humidity amps up as soon as the sun sheds it's strong light into every crevice of your balcony. It's way nicer in June than it is in August when it's already beastly hot and heavily humid at 7 AM but it's "home" even though my other home is in the Carolinas. 

Honestly it's good to be "home" with your two best friends that you have done everything with forever be it storm chasing, belly dancing or being on Hard Copy back when to talk about the Hurricane Season; full disclosure my best friend Sharon has been to hurricane conferences with me at the Hurricane Center to listen to speakers speak on historical hurricanes and new research programs.... she is a hard core hurricane friend, fanatic or any word you wish to use for someone who lives all year to see what the tropics have in store for us.   Our kids just called us "crazy" but when Andrew came to our homes on Miami Beach where we rode out the storm .... she had 72 bottles of water and cases of batteries and trust me she was prepared! All during the very dead year of 1992 she insisted we were going to get a hurricane and she was right even though the A storm arrived in late August. But what a storm it was.....   Before the storm we stayed at the beach a few blocks from our houses for as long as we could even though most everyone was evacuating with the city's Park and Ride system set up for Dolphin games.  Shame New Orleans didn't do that by Katrina, but I regress...    My daughter Miriam was five and she came with us and ran around the boardwalk enjoying the wind pretending to be a plane with her arms out wide laughing. Full disclosure Miriam had gone to the beach with me before any tropical anything since she was two she loves wind and wild weather. Sharon and I stared at the stormiest, dark gray surf tossing sea foam up onto the beach and the tropical breeze had changed to full on power more like an industrial fan on high a few feet away from you. Hair flying, sand blowing, sea foam dancing, dark clouds rolling in and a sea green surf you only see in Miami before a bad storm. 

And that's what life is all about if you love the weather, the wilder the weather the better, and you are lucky enough to have a best friend who chases with you and dances with you and rolls with the punches life gives you and it was good to be home with her and our other friend Malka for the first time in 18 months on June 1st the start of the Hurricane Season. Full disclosure... Malka's birthday IS June 1st and she has the energy of a Cat 5 hurricane and Marilyn Monroe (also June 1st) all rolled into one. 

So as I pack up and watch my daughter Rivky get ready to go to work and say goodbye (not easy) sharing this all with you very old school BobbiStorm longread blog on a quiet day in the tropics. Rivky was 7 months old by Hurricane Andrew, I spent most of it upstairs in our huge home, boarded up with my body over her a bit in case something broke loose in the wind. Our house was fine, but a block away someone's roof flew off their house into the neighbors pool; Miami Beach really had strong weather from Andrew but the City didn't like to show people the pictures as they wanted to clean it up and be ready for tourist season a few months later. All the signage from 41st Street ended up in my parent's lawn on 37th Street; every huge tree for miles was down on Miami Beach but the press was down in Homestead where they got the full brunt of that beastly hurricane.  My kids live at the beach before a hurricane until the police make them leave.... some waiting for that one perfect shot to record the moment before landfall!

It's going to be a rough season so take it from me and PREPARE. Be like Sharon who had 72 bottles of water put away, some she bought and often she just washed out and refilled Publix Soda bottles with water to use to wash rather than drink and seeing how we didn't have water for days nor power for weeks .... we were happy we had prepared and made it through the storm. 

Be like Sharon... prepare!

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter and Instagram

Ps I'll write more on real hurricane stuff once back in Raleigh. Thanks for your patience and reading if you are still reading but hey this is a blog, an online record of my life as I study weather, hurricanes and beg y'all to prepare... start buying water and batteries and make sure you have your plan to evacuate should you be told to.. Here at my kid's fancy condo by the Bay they don't have much of a choice unless they want to stay here without power or water (maybe a Cat 1 would be okay) as the building literally shuts everything off to evacuate even though they have Hurricane Glass that supposedly will be find even in a Category 5 Hurricane. I hope so but if you believe that totally ....there's a bridge I can sell you in Brooklyn! But let's hope it's really hurricane proof..... as always time will tell!