Freezing Florida

Contrary to the northern belief, Florida does get cold. On January 22, 2009, Central Florida had one of the coldest nights of the winter. That morning, plants were covered in ice. Grass had a thin layer of frost on it. Icicles were hanging from trees, and the cold pretty much destroyed any tropical plants I was growing, as well as plenty of non-tropical plants in my garden.



Car windshields were also a problem. I don't own any ice scrapers, so pouring a little warm tea on the ice and turning on the windshield wipers did the trick.




Any water that was warmer than the air was releasing lots of steam. Every drain into the sewers was releasing a cloud as well as most lakes. Steam rising off of lakes is very strange in the early morning light. It looks almost prehistoric, like a dinosaur could be drinking out of the water.


Of course, when it's cold like this, it's a perfect time to have a fire in the rarely used fireplace.




I love the cold weather!

Lenticular Clouds

Lenticular Clouds are a rare sight in Florida. They seem to only occur in cold weather, and Florida doesn't get cold that often. These strange looking clouds take the form of very smooth concave shapes. The best lenticular clouds are ones that are perfectly round and resembles an upside down bowl. I've only come across one of these perfect "UFO Clouds" on one occasion, but I've seen lenticular clouds like the ones on this page more frequently. These clouds don't have as much of a spherical shape and are more like several overlapping upside down bowls.

These lenticulars were seen over the cities of Casselberry and Longwood in January 2009.

Delta 4 Rocket Launch (January 17, 2009)

A Delta 4 Rocket launched on January 17, 2009 from Cape Canaveral. I tried taking some pictures/video of the launch, but didn't have much luck. Insead, check out this video of the launch from Spacevidcast on Youtube:

Swimming Horse

I came across this horse going for a swim one afternoon while biking along the Seminole Wekiva Trail in Lake Mary, FL.

Wolf Moon

January's Wolf Moon, which occurred on the 1/10/09, was the biggest and the brightest of all of 2009.

Light Show on the Vue

The Vue in Downtown Orlando has a rather interesting light show on what appears to be the building's stairs. I imagine this must get old quick if you live in one of the condos with windows next to the lights...

Happy 2009

Out of all of the New Years Eve firework shows that I've seen in Florida, nothing beats this one. Disney definitely does fireworks the best...