Florida – Page 5 – Philip Greenspun’s Weblog

Hurricane Idalia, METAR edition

August 30, 2023September 1, 2023 by philg

Here’s the part of the Florida coast where Hurricane Idalia arrived recently:

Notice that the area where the hurricane was predicted to make landfall, and actually did make landfall, is covered in wildlife refuges. In other words, no humans would ordinarily be resident in this area. What does it look like for pilots? There are two airports with weather stations: Tallahassee (KTLH) and Perry-Foley (KFPY):

How ugly did it get at Ron DeSantis’s house?

KTLH 301308Z AUTO 34028G40KT 2SM +RA BR FEW015 BKN036 OVC065 24/23 A2936 RMK AO2 PK WND 34040/1308

Winds 28 gusting 40 knots, 2 miles of visibility in heavy rain and mist, a broken layer of clouds at 3,600′ above the runway. That was around 9:08 am (1308 GMT).

What about around Perry-Foley, which is much closer to the water?

KFPY 301335Z AUTO 27033G48KT 2 1/2SM RA 25/24 A2904 RMK AO2 LTG DSNT SW T02450238
KFPY 301315Z AUTO 26037G51KT 2SM RA 25/24 A2894 RMK AO2 LTG DSNT NE T02480241
KFPY 301255Z AUTO 28050G74KT 1SM +VCTSRA 25/24 A2865 RMK AO2 LTG DSNT N AND NE P0071 T02470240
KFPY 301235Z AUTO 31044G68KT 1SM +VCTSRA 25/24 A2834 RMK AO2 LTG DSNT NE AND S P0063 T02460240
KFPY 301215Z AUTO 01054G74KT 1SM +TSRA OVC008 25/24 A2828 RMK AO2 LTG DSNT N AND NE P0029 T02470240
KFPY 301155Z AUTO 02043G62KT 1 1/4SM +RA OVC008 25/24 A2860 RMK AO2 LTG DSNT NE AND E P0046 6//// 7//// T02510240
KFPY 301135Z AUTO 04034G56KT 2 1/2SM VCTSRA OVC011 25/24 A2887 RMK AO2 P0029 T02510240
KFPY 301055Z AUTO 06030G42KT 1 3/4SM +RA SCT007 OVC013 A2913 RMK AO2 P0024
KFPY 301035Z AUTO 05024G36KT 4SM RA BKN008 OVC013 25/24 A2919 RMK AO2 P0008 T02520240
KFPY 301015Z AUTO 04019G29KT 3SM RA OVC008 25/24 A2927 RMK AO2 P0004 T02500240

About 2.5 hours of frightening wind, which peaked at 54 knots gusting 74. There was a heavy thunderstorm with rain and skies overcast at 800′ above the runway. “LTG DSNT” means “lightning distant”.

Cedar Key, Florida is a small collection of islands tenuously connected to the mainland with charming wooden buildings (i.e., dilapidated) that look like they could be blown away in a fresh breeze. Cedar Key was widely highlighted in hysterical media stories as likely to be wiped out by Idalia’s storm surge. Yet people refused to take a day for sightseeing in Orlando! “‘We Should Have Gotten Off the Island’: Cedar Key Residents Survived Idalia’s Wrath” (New York Times):

Hours after the waters of the Gulf of Mexico swept through her house, Donna Knight emerged in a windbreaker and boots to try to get her Chevy SUV to higher ground.

“It came through — the whole ocean,” she said, describing a night of howling wind, frightening bangs and flying debris as Hurricane Idalia blew through Cedar Key, a conglomeration of tiny islands connected by bridges that juts three miles into the Gulf.

By noon on Wednesday, the center of the Category 3 storm had passed, and she and her 19-year-old son knew they had survived. “We should have gotten off the island,” she said.

Officials had estimated before Idalia made landfall that perhaps 100 people were riding out the storm on Cedar Key. It was unclear how many had left the island immediately afterward.

Not a great advertisement for the Florida K-12 system…

Ms. Knight, 62, a 20-year Cedar Key resident, had every intention of heeding the mandatory evacuation order ahead of Idalia, she said. “My bags were packed.” She just needed gas and groceries, and would join her husband and mother-in-law near Orlando.

But her son didn’t want to go. “I wasn’t going to leave him by himself,” she said.

This was the absolutely the most obvious place from which to evacuate and yet 100 people (out of 700 total population; the NYT fails to provide context) decided to stay (a “mandatory” evacuation order in Florida is not backed up by COVID lockdown police tactics).

How was it in Palm Beach County, you may ask? A little windy. Hot as hell if hell were also super humid (2-3 degrees above the historical average; 3-4 degrees below the historical record). Scattered thunderstorms (common in the summer anyway). I ended up on a bug-free boardwalk in the Everglades at the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, a 145,000-acre swamp. I’ve been on about 15 boardwalks in the Everglades and never been bothered by mosquitoes or other flying predators. This is one of the big mysteries of Florida!

A Robinson R44 goes home to Boca Raton (from the Panhandle) (includes pictures of Cedar Key)

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Being boiled alive in the 101-degree ocean (according to NYT)

August 6, 2023August 7, 2023 by philg

At least five of the folks with whom I chatted in the San Francisco Bay Area recently noted that the ocean water near Florida had been heated up to more than 100 degrees. When I asked them what part of the Florida shoreline was plagued with this scalding water, they couldn’t answer precisely. Their conjectures ranged from a few miles out to sea from Miami to maybe right near a popular beach.

For all of these loyal Followers of Science, one of whom has a Ph.D. in physics, the source was “101°F in the Ocean Off Florida: Was It a World Record?” (New York Times, July 26, 2023):

The reading from a buoy off Florida this week was stunning: 101.1 degrees Fahrenheit, or just over 38 Celsius, a possible world record for sea surface temperatures and a stark indication of the brutal marine heat wave that’s threatening the region’s sea life.

So it’s “off Florida” and therefore out into the open sea, right? If we had any doubt about this, the Scientists at the NYT include a photo of the open ocean underneath the headline:

Based on the headline and the photo, then, a Marvel-style villain heated up part of the open ocean to over 101 degrees and, with a little more climate change, it is easy to imagine this hitting 213 degrees F, the boiling point for sea water. (In other words, New Yorkers with money should not follow their former neighbors and move to Florida because the risk of being boiled alive at the beach is real.)

The best-known beach in Florida is Miami Beach. Is it 101.1 degrees in the water there? seatemperature.net says that, around the time that the NYT raised the alarm, it was a degree or two hotter than the average for previous years:

Maybe “off Florida” meant into the Gulf of Mexico? The water temp on the west coast of Florida was also about average.

Let’s dig for clues in the NYT article:

Allyson Gantt of the National Park Service, which monitors and maintains the buoy, said there was no reason to doubt the measurement. The data was consistent with high water temperatures seen in the area, Florida Bay, between the southern end of the Florida mainland and the Florida Keys, in recent weeks, she said.

Just like it’s easier to heat up a shallow bath than a deep one, the depth of the water is going to affect temperatures, said Jeff Masters, a former hurricane scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and a co-founder of Weather Underground, a Web-based weather service.

So… it turns out the buoy was not “off Florida”, but rather inside Florida (between the Keys and the mainland). The NYT tells us that shallow water will heat up more than the deep ocean, just as your backyard swimming pool heats up more, but the newspaper of Science doesn’t tell us the water depth.

What’s unusual about the water between the Keys and the mainland? That’s where beginner kiteboarders and windsurfers are taken to learn because (a) the wind is steady, and (b) the water is so shallow that students can stand up after falling off the board. How shallow? The charts show between 0′ and 6′ at low tide:

So the NYT reader was informed that the “ocean off Florida” had reached 101.1 degrees when, in fact, it was a protected area possibly just a few feet deep. (The open ocean off Florida’s Atlantic coast quickly reaches depths of 1,000′ and more.) Is Florida Bay even part of the ocean? Wikipedia says that “It is a large, shallow estuary that while connected to the Gulf of Mexico, has limited exchange of water due to various shallow mudbanks covered with seagrass.” (What’s an estuary? Wikipedia says “An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea.”)

A Bay Area Deplorable (deeply closeted so that he can keep his job!), when I shared these conversations with him, said “when you’re looking at the New York Times, what you don’t see is more important than what you do see.” (i.e., the unseen depth of the water and the unseen previous buoy high temp in the same area are more important than the seen recent high temperature)

When I got home on August 3, 2023, I discovered that the lifeguards on the Atlantic coast hadn’t been reading the New York Times. They marked the Juno Beach water temperature as 85 degrees:

In case the NYT article gets memory-holed, some screen shots:

Note that the article also mentions “Manatee Bay” as a place where the “ocean” is super hot. Here’s the open ocean in Manatee Bay, from Google Maps:

How deep is Manatee Bay? 4-5 feet, except where mud or coral makes it shallower.

Why does it matter? If you’re ordering a 150-meter boat from Meyer Werft, make sure to tell them it can’t draw more than 4′ (or 1′ for Florida Bay?) because you want to sail it in what the New York Times calls “the ocean”.

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DeSantis kills permanent alimony

July 28, 2023July 20, 2023 by philg

Although the profit opportunity from child support, e.g., from a one-night unmarried encounter, was limited in Florida, the state was a paradise for alimony plaintiffs, especially those married or 7 years or more who could seek “permanent alimony”. The successful plaintiff could use what had been the defendant’s money to throw a massive divorce party, as recently described in the Wall Street Journal. Due to the cruel tyranny of Ron DeSantis, however, the party may be over a little earlier than planned…

“Governor DeSantis Signs Landmark Alimony Reform Bill Eliminating Permanent Alimony” (Lowndes). As in some other states, the alimony revenue opportunity is now a formula based on time served:

The length of durational alimony is not to exceed 50% of short-term marriages (<10 years); 60% of moderate-term marriages (10-20 years); and 75% of long-term marriages (20+ years);

Plaintiffs still have an incentive to quit jobs and spend like crazy in the months or years leading up to their lawsuits:

The amount of durational alimony is to be determined by reasonable needs not to exceed 35% of the difference between the net incomes of the parties, whichever is less.

“reasonable needs” = whatever a plaintiff was spending during the marriage, so a plaintiff who takes five trips to Europe before suing can say that regular trips to Europe were part of the marital lifestyle. Also note that alimony is now tax-free (as child support previously was), so 35% of the defendant’s income is roughly 50% of the defendant’s spending power (and could become more if Joe Biden delivers on his promise to make successful Americans pay their fair share). Alimony revenue entitlement is subject to modification if incomes change, so a plaintiff who wins 15 years of alimony will have a financial incentive to refrain from work for 15 years.

Embedded in an amoral society, moralism:

Courts can consider the impact of adultery in determining the amount of alimony whether or not it has a financial impact.

(In the true no-fault states, a plaintiff who says “I want a divorce because the defendant objects to all of the Tinder dates I have brought home to the master bedroom” is entitled to the same profits as one who has been faithful.)

It will be tougher to profit after a defendant’s death:

Requires the showing of a special circumstance to secure alimony with life insurance.

Let’s check the reactions…

A “gender bias expert” (PhD!) implies that it is “women” who are alimony profiteers, despite the fact that the Florida alimony law was and is gender-neutral:

Here’s one from a “fascism fighting scribe” (who complains of living in “DeSantistan” (why not move away from fascism?)) in which the reduction in profitability of divorce lawsuits is characterized as “erosion of the institution of marriage in Florida”:

Note that this person also suggests that, out of 74 gender IDs recognized by Science, it is “women” who are passionate seekers of permanent alimony.

Regardless of the gender IDs of those involved, the new law is interesting from a cultural perspective. Americans apparently can agree that decades of cash payments are the natural outcome of a marriage in which one participant decided that he/she/ze/they would be better off partnering with someone else (or flying solo/Tinder). The British have a different point of view. A married defendant will see his/her/zir/their plaintiff in court over a period of months and, in an ideal world, one former sex partner will pay the other a lump sum as part of a “clean break”. And then in Germany, assuming the couple being divorced checked a “separate property” box on the marriage license application, neither former sex partner will pay the other (someone who didn’t work during the marriage is expected to work once divorced).

Real World Divorce Florida chapter (will now require revision!)
a look at how family law financial incentives shrink the U.S. economy by discouraging plaintiffs from working
below is an ideal Presidential-style tweet from Joe Biden’s handlers that, in my opinion, DeSantis needs to copy if he’s going to win. Biden’s script line, “There is nothing beyond our capacity if we work together” is completely false, but it sounds great. (Why false? Building and operating a Chinese-style high-speed rail system is way beyond our capacity. Creating a health care system that an increasingly low-skill population can afford has been beyond our capacity for decades (so 18% of GDP is spent on health care compared to less than 5% in high-skill Singapore).) DeSantis would have to modify the below. Say that he’s optimistic if we change a few things, e.g., stop offering to change the depicted child’s gender with drugs and surgery, try to cut the number of Americans on means-tested welfare down from 100 million, etc. But DeSantis needs to start with a message that even the lowest-skill most welfare-dependent richest-in-criminal-background Americans are going to contribute to a bright future.

I’ve never been more optimistic about America’s future.

There is nothing beyond our capacity if we work together. pic.twitter.com/7cZkQMWzca
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 20, 2023

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New York Times on the fascist “paradise”

July 24, 2023July 6, 2023 by philg

The New York Times regularly runs stories about Floridians suffering from “fascism”, “tyranny”, and “authoritarianism”, the most accurate descriptions of being governed by Ron DeSantis. What else is true about Florida, according to the newspaper of record? “36 hours: Florida Panhandle” (NYT, July 6, 2023):

The word “paradise” appears twice in the article as the most succinct characterization of the destination covered.

So… Florida is “fascist”, but also “paradise” for a tourist. Does this make sense? Did the NYT recommend attending the 1938 rally in Nuremberg, Germany (after Anschluss) because the city was a “paradise” of historical buildings, culture, and parks?

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Floridians brave Extreme Danger heat levels

July 19, 2023 by philg

Following up on Ireland in the European heat wave… the latest map from the New York Times shows that Palm Beach County is suffering from 125-degree heat:

If it gets even 1 degree hotter, we might be into the “Extreme Danger” zone:

Due to a toilet trip lever failure (everything in this 20-year-old house seems to have been designed to last for exactly 20 years), we cautiously ventured out to Home Depot in the local strip mall (Palm Beach Gardens; 4 miles from the ocean). We decided to eat lunch at one of the high-end restaurants there and found that these two people had chosen to flirt with Danger at an outdoor table rather than enjoy the comfortable indoor air-conditioned environment where they’d received their food. Not shown: the person on the right (pronouns unknown) was wearing massive fuzzy bunny slippers, ordinarily marketed for use in frigid New England winters.

After stopping into PetSmart, we passed by a table-service restaurant in which a Floridian is wearing long pants and a sweater in what the New York Times says might be 125-degree heat:

Here’s what the Google says about afternoon temps in the heat dome over the strip mall:

Fortunately, I hope to be escaping to comfortable 93-degree weather in Oshkosh, Wisconsin for next week’s EAA AirVenture:

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Latinx migrant suffers from fascism and tyranny imposed by Governor Ron DeSantis

July 18, 2023July 18, 2023 by philg

From the Journal of Popular Studies… “Lionel Messi Spotted Grocery Shopping at Florida Publix Before Making MLS Debut with Inter Miami”:

Just days after the Argentinian soccer star arrived in the United States to join his new team, Inter Miami, Messi was spotted shopping at a local Publix.

We are informed by CNN and the New York Times that Ron DeSantis is a tyrant and that his rule over Florida is a cruel example of fascism. Yet now we learn that Lionel Messi is voluntarily taking a pay cut (compared to what he would have earned playing for a team in Saudi Arabia) to live and work in the fascist hellscape of Florida. How is it possible that he failed to notice the fascism and tyranny prior to agreeing to play for Miami?

(How much will choosing fascism/tyranny cost Messi? NBC says that Messi gave up a three-year $1.6 billion deal in the DeSantis-free nation of Saudi Arabia.)

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Avenir: a 4,000-house development in Florida proves that New Urbanism does not maximize profits

June 22, 2023June 8, 2023 by philg

As the U.S. population grows (Pew forecast), let’s consider what kind of residential environment will be enjoyed by the country of 450+ million…

We live in Abacoa, a New Urbanism community developed 25 years ago by the MacArthur Foundation, which didn’t need to make the last nickel off the project. Our development is organized into neighborhoods, each with 130-300 households, a small enough group that people can reasonably get to know each other (see Dunbar’s number). Each neighborhood has its own common facilities, such as a clubhouse/gym, a pool, a playground, and a green field. Neither the neighborhoods nor the development are gated, so everything is integrated and you can walk around without looking at high walls. There is a walkable town center, which is pleasant but denies retailers access to the traffic from a major road. We’re home to a university, a neuroscience lab from Germany, and a biology research lab. For aesthetics, the houses usually have their garages in the back and cars go in and out via alleys. Abacoa has been successful and, we’re told (at least by realtors!), that people pay a premium to live here. Even people who don’t live in this part of town say “I love Abacoa”.

If this style of development makes humans happy and motivates humans to pay a premium, you’d think that it would be commercially successful and copies would be sprouting everywhere. That does not seem to be true, however. Across the main road from Abacoa is a newer community: Alton. Their “town center” is a strip mall on a 50-mph 6-lane road. Their clubhouse/gym/pool is a massive magnificent facility serving the entire development (vastly larger than Dunbar’s number). The houses themselves are crammed together more closely than in Abacoa and often “meet the street” with a garage door.

Some of the same builders involved in Abacoa have turned their attention to some former swampland that will soon support 4,000 houses: Avenir. It seems safe to assume that the developers want to maximize their profits. What’s profitable? A rejection of much of New Urbanism and what makes Abacoa Great:

each neighborhood is gated (many walls!)
there is a massive central gym/pool to serve a huge number of households
the town center is a strip mall on a busy road
driveways and garages are in front of the houses (saves the cost of building alleys)
no townhouses and apartments, just single-family homes

I visited on April 7. It’s across the street from and actually farther from “civilization” than the Grassy Waters Preserve:

Here are some houses built by Pulte Homes that meet the street with a driveway/garage:

I will give Pulte Homes credit for a nice outdoor kitchen. I want this one:

While I can see that the massive central gym and pool would appeal to people coming to look at buying a house (only after they move in will they realize that it would have been nicer to have smaller neighborhood-based amenities), I don’t understand why the other things that make New Urbanism communities so pleasant and desirable aren’t profitable. I thought that we had learned our lesson about the dangers of conventional 1970s suburban development leading to loneliness and insanity.

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Why won’t Americans move away from states that they characterize as oppressive?

June 13, 2023June 13, 2023 by philg

“NAACP Issues Travel Advisory in Florida” (NAACP):

the NAACP Board of Directors issued a formal travel advisory for the state of Florida. The travel advisory comes in direct response to Governor Ron DeSantis’ aggressive attempts to erase Black history and to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Florida schools.

The formal travel notice states, “Florida is openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals. Before traveling to Florida, please understand that the state of Florida devalues and marginalizes the contributions of, and the challenges faced by African Americans and other communities of color.”

“Let me be clear – failing to teach an accurate representation of the horrors and inequalities that Black Americans have faced and continue to face is a disservice to students and a dereliction of duty to all,” said NAACP President & CEO Derrick Johnson. “Under the leadership of Governor Desantis, the state of Florida has become hostile to Black Americans and in direct conflict with the democratic ideals that our union was founded upon. He should know that democracy will prevail because its defenders are prepared to stand up and fight. We’re not backing down, and we encourage our allies to join us in the battle for the soul of our nation.”

According to the NAACP Board members, Florida has either no soul or an evil soul. Democracy might “prevail” in the future, which implies that right now there is no democracy in Florida. Therefore, nobody should risk spending a week at Disney World or on the Miami Beach sand.

Where do the successful intelligent people who issued this advisory choose to live? Florida. The Board of Directors page lists Leon W. Russell as the Chair. Mr. Russell’s Twitter profile says that he chooses to live in Tampa, Florida. The page shows that at least some other Board members also choose to live in Florida:

In other words, the folks who said that Florida is too dangerous to visit for even a few days due to its missing and/or defective soul and its lack of democracy choose to live in Florida all-year every-year. There is no income or estate tax in Florida, but the folks who issued this warning pay sales tax to support the tyranny of Ron DeSantis (whose name they do not capitalize properly!) every time that they shop at Publix. If they keep sending money to the tyrant, shouldn’t he infer that they actually support whatever it is that he is doing?

The Republicans I know who live in Democrat-run states don’t say that they are suffering from “fascism”, but they still say that they disagree with lockdowns, school closures, mask orders, vaccine papers checks, race-based government programs, gender reassignment surgery for teenagers, etc. When I suggested to a pilot friend in Maskachusetts that he move to a state where the government would use his tax money to do things that he supports, he said that he wants to but that his wife wants to “stay and fight”. He pays about $400,000 per year in state/local taxes. I suggested that he give me $400k/year and that I would do a bunch of stuff that he disagrees with in exchange. His wife can trash talk me on Facebook and Twitter to her heart’s content. Does he think that I will be motivated to change while the $400k checks continue to roll in?

“Stay and fight” makes sense to me if the dispute is over the appropriate level of school funding or whether zoning laws should be relaxed to allow construction of massive apartment buildings to accommodate some of the 100+ million additional Americans who are going to be living here due to our mostly-open-borders immigration policy. But “stay and fight” wouldn’t have made sense against a totalitarian 20th century government. Nobody who stayed to fight Stalin or Mao had any significant positive impact. Yet it is precisely this kind of totalitarianism that Florida Democrats say they are experiencing. Some examples from the tyrant’s opponent in the 2022 general election:

After what he called “fascism” won by a landslide, did he move to a fascism-free state? I haven’t found any media stories suggesting that Crist did anything to free himself. He’s quietly living in Florida, apparently, paying taxes to keep fascism going. (See Will Democrats have to move if Republicans win in their states? for some more examples.)

Marijuana entrepreneur-partnered Nikki Fried is running the Florida Democrats right now. She chooses to live in Florida, where she says that “fascism” prevails (since we must work to “end fascism”):

This is terrific news for our state. They know that we are ready to unite to end fascism and fight for our rights. https://t.co/wDAvgZmCkk
— Nikki Fried (@NikkiFried) May 3, 2023

Why don’t we see Democrats fleeing fascism in significant numbers? There should be plenty of room right now in the fascism-free state of New York: “NYC lost 5.3% of its population — nearly a half-million people — since COVID, with most heading South” (New York Post, May 18, 2023).

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Pride Month has arrived once again in our Florida neighborhood

June 6, 2023May 26, 2023 by philg

It’s Pride Month once again in our MacArthur Foundation-built New Urbanism development.

The above young people have graduated from the regular high school, the nerd (“STEM”) high school, and the talented (“arts”) high school (funded by a former MIT Board member, Alex Dreyfoos). All of these are public schools, run by Palm Beach County.

The bad news for Emily, headed for University of Florida, is the school is ranked only #29 in the nation by U.S. News. The good news for her parents is that they likely won’t be paying tuition due to the Bright Futures program in which lottery addicts fund higher education (a savings of $6,400/year, the headline in-state tuition rate).

Readers: How’s your Pride Month going? What are you proud of?

(Also, I’m in the mountains this week. What’s happening with Target’s attempt to proselytize customers into the One True Corporate Faith? (Note that I’ve been boycotting the Jupiter, Florida Target for almost two years.))

Is LGBTQIA the most popular social justice cause because it does not require giving money?

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