Friday, January 8, 2010

S'no snow

Well, Wonder Turtle fans, we Panhandle Floridians got all excited earlier this week over reports that we might get some snow flurries overnight Thursday. The last time our neck of the woods saw flurries was 2002, and I don't remember snow since 1994.

Well, Friday morning looked much like every other morning. No flurries, no "snow" sticking to the hoods of cars, no picture-perfect icicles hanging from leaves. I was hoping to have some cool photos to post here for you.

C'est la vie.

And, baby, it's cold outside! Well, cold for us. We've been having days in the 40s and nights in the 20s (with hard freeze warnings) for several days now with more to come. It's rare for it to be so cold for so long here. I love it, though. I'm from Florida, and I don't like the summer. It's not so much the heat as it is the humidity. Ninety degrees would be so much more tolerable if the humidity wasn't 95%. Ugh, gross. I'll take our Florida winters any day, thank you very much.




Here's an example of a winter day in the Florida Panhandle. This photo was taken on a "cold" day in Seaside in early February 2008.



You know who's not loving all this cold, though? Our poor turtle friends. I read an article in the Northwest Florida Daily News today about some 200 green sea turtles in nearby Port St. Joe being rescued yesterday from frigid St. Joseph Bay. They were relocated to the heated pools at Gulf World Marine Park in Panama City Beach and will stay there until the bay waters warm back up. More volunteers are going back to get more turtles today and this weekend.  Another front is coming our way, and it's about to get even colder.

The cold weather and low tide in the bay left the poor little guys exposed and they went into shock. Florida turtles aren't used to this nonsense. Fortunately, almost all of the turtles are alive and will most likely survive and will go back home to St. Joseph Bay once the temps rise again.

Wally the Wonder Turtle and I would like to thank the St. Joseph Bay Buffer Preserve, the Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Friends of the Buffer Preserve Organization, the folks at Gulf World Marine Park, and all of the volunteers for helping out our turtle buddies!

--Jenny

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