Don’t bother to answer, just get out while you can, if you haven’t already. Milton is supposed to make landfall soon.
As someone in Minnesota, I don’t understand why anyone lives in that morass of swampland. Sure, we get occasional tornadoes, but they’re pitiful compared to hurricanes; yeah, it gets a bit cold in the winter, but we just hunker down in a cozy warm house until the blizzard blows over, and we’re not sitting in a puddle of sweat all the time. There’s also the difference between a governor Walz vs DeSantis.
Follow the Mississippi north. We’ll welcome you with some hotdish and a pair of mittens.
I despise Florida. Lived there for two years, have no desire to ever return. The only loss when the whole peninsula goes underwater will be the Everglades; it’ll be a shame to see them go. KSS will find another launch site, so that’s not a problem.
As to inviting them north, are you sure about that? You really want all the people who voted DeSantis into office to invade Minnesota? Those, and the right-wing nutjob members of the Cuban diaspora? Good luck.
Hoping all the Pharyngula regulars in Florida stay safe & wishing them the best. As noted here :
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2024/10/04/infinite-thread-xxxiii/comment-page-1/#comment-2238767
in the link included there,; if there was such a thing as a category 6 hurricane then Milton would be it. (5 mins mark there – 12 mins total approx.) As others have suggested before, hurricane sshould bear the name sof fossil fuol companies and Climate Deniers.
Incidentally, just learnt from that linked in the link Majority Report clip that the smaller the eye of the hurricane the more powerful it is, it seems? Also that there is a mathematical limit for how huge hurricanes can get – and this one is pushing that limit – so, again, stay safe everyone there and if you are there and can still get out safely please do.
LOL.
Good idea.
So when is hurricane DeSantis scheduled to make landfall?
I’m from Florida originally…emphasis on “from”…a long way from Florida…about as far as I can get and still be in the US. That’s the best place to be.
I grew up in Jacksonville, one of the least appealing parts of Florida. Miserably hot and humid in the summer (which is most of the year) replete with thunderstorms and even tornadoes, cold and wet in the winter, mosquitoes by the billions sucking your blood, cockroaches the size of small cats, and good old boy rednecks all year round and everywhere. Lovely place.
Much of Florida isn’t “swampy” in the way most people think of swamps, you know mire, muck and gumbo with snakes, alligators, and other creepy crawlies. For one thing, they’ve drained the wet lands to build places like Disney World and Jacksonville. Even if it isn’t swampy per se, most of Florida is low. My brother lives on the north side of the St. John’s River no more than 3 feet above sea level. Not a very comfortable situation if you ask me. Oh, and when the storm surges come in it drives the creepy crawlies out of the very low places onto the high ground…3 feet being high ground.
One good thing about Jacksonville: unlike Miami, it has not had many direct hits from hurricanes. Milton will mostly miss it.
We’re already up to M; and IIUC, they use given names, not surnames.
How about Hurricane Newt?
raven @ #3 — Don’t you know!? According to the Gospel of DeSantis hurricanes don’t exist. And Florida doesn’t need any stinking FEMA help.
I saw a suggestion that they should be named after Republican politicians. Hurricane Ron for example or Hurricane Don or Hurricane Marge.
Hasn’t Minnesota been dumping it’s undesirables of Floriduh for a long time and now you want them back?
PZ sure is brave! Id only enjoy watching what Floridaman in Minesota gets up to from a very same distance…
Same -> safe distance
muttpupdad @ #2 — When I was living there it was less about Minnesotans dumped on Florida but New Yorkers. One in particular comes to mind.
The winter air here in northern Sweden is cold but usually bone-dry. Once you have dressed for the weather you do not get the damp, penetrating cold you get down south. Just a factoid if you are thinking of evacuating from DeSantistan to some nice place.
Rural people here have rifles, but they only use them for moose (aka 600-pound squirrels that chomp on the saplings).
BTW the devastation of the previous hurricane has converted even arch-conservative Florida senator Rick Scott into taking climate change seriously. So this is a bona fide miracle.
FYI the Atlantic hurricane names are decided already and are only retired out of the six-year rotation if they have large impact like Helene or Milton. This year’s N storm will be Nadine. See https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutnames.shtml
Stay safe, everybody.
Meanwhile still hoping for Mar-a-lago to become Mar-sub-lago.
Sounds like Maryland.
ABC live news coverage here FWIW :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-10/hurricane-milton-live-updates/104454338
I wonder if future historians – if we get to have any – will look back on this moment as the beginning of the end of Florida?
Exaggeration? Maybe but still, We know what the science predicts here given Global Overheating and our refusal to act on the warnings we’ve known for many decades now. The future for Florida is not good and tI wonder if Hurricane Milton could be about to change some of Florida’s physical geography.
I also wonder what the immeduiate electoral consequences of thsi storm will be.
The book title and some of what was written in it by former NASA chief Climatologist James Hansen :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storms_of_My_Grandchildren
springs to mind. Written over a decade ago already?!
Seen videos including on youtube of what the world with rsiong seas will look like. Florida does not fare well.
If its going to get regular pummelled with unsurvivable hurricanes multiple times a year, well, what kind of future does that lead to?