Very odd in West Central Florida, too. Quiet, soft morning rains? And where are our really dramatic afternoon storms? It's rained every day, and it's mostly been overcast, with drizzly rain, intersperced with rather heavy, though usually stormless, showers. My plants are thriving, but for the geraniums.

We are getting morning showers and storms, afternoon showers and storms and evening showers and storms. Very weird indeed, but my plants are loving all the moisture. (I AM NOT COMPLAINING) It is making me stay inside more and do less outside which is making my physical therapist very happy and I am feeling better physically for it. It is so miserably humid and sticky here afternoons and evenings, makes you NOT want to venture outside at all without a beach towel to mop up the moisture and sweat!

I've come to take the idea of "normal" weather in Central Florida with a grain of salt. I know the general idea--mild winters, with or without rain; spring almost always dry and often hot; rainy summers and autumns, but there are so many deviations from the pattern.

It often rains this way in late august and september (though like you say not last year), but this year the monsoons seem to have come early.

Late spring/early summer of '93 spoiled me. I was living in a house without a/c, and every afternoon a hard shower would cool everything off. It always lasted an hour or so. It happened around 2 in the afternoon, just when the heat was getting unbearable, and it happened every day. Sun before. Sun afterwards. It was beautiful. But ever since I've thought of that as "normal" summer weather for Central FL, and ever since I've been disappointed.
Bill

We've been having the sunny mornings and afternoon deluges this past month. It finally kicked in here in S. Flo.

I'm with Bill. There is no such thing as normal weather here. I have lived in Florida since 1975 and each year is a surprise. We think of Florida as a temperate climate but I would say it has some definite extremes.

I always liked the saying "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes"

The rainy, rainy, RAINY summer season we've been having lately is actually making me feel a little better about the weather instead of worse. At least it's in the neighborhood of normal for us; unlike the "how can it possibly be this hot now" January we had, and that drought-y dry spring that felt like it would never rain again. This global warming stuff is getting scarier by the year.

Serious craziness. Here in North Tampa, it has rained basically nonstop for the last 3 days. Before that, the most significant rain we had was Tropical Storm Barry back on the first of June! The pattern in my neighborhood has been:
sunny morning, clouds midday and perhaps 10 minutes of light rain, then sun all afternoon. Hardly any serious rain (ponding in yard) has fallen in two months. (In a case of terrible irony, our new roof was put on during this rain spell.) arrrgghh :P

Other parts of Tampa have been different. Driving about town, you can see in the unirrigated landscape which areas have been getting rain and which haven't. Finally we are, and I am loving it. This has been such a peaceful rainy day. Forecast says we are in for a dry weekend, which my herbs will appreciate.

I know there's no such thing as "normal" Florida weather. Everything is ebb and flow in giant meteorological cycles. But 2 months without a good thunderstorm in the middle of summer?? dang.

Supposedly we will be getting back to a dryer period now in SW Florida. I don't wanna drag hoses, let it sprinkle, at least!

I am a native Floridian and a new construction plumber. I work outside a lot and have for many years. Our weather patterns have certainly changed, at least over my head. I won't argue with super intelligent people who have college degrees but I will state what I see happening in my world around me. Things are a changing. Long term, short term, who knows? Ask the sharks. They have been here a lot longer than us :)

I grew up in florida; I remember that the summer rains were always afternoon downpours. Such that we would swim in the edges of the streets. I have no memory of a day-long rain.

I'm a native Florida girl too, I don't know what "normal" is for us any more. Now we're making up for those long dry months and I'm happy for it. My husband went to Utah a few years ago, driving with some friends they couldn't believe he just kept driving in the rain. That's what we learn to do in Florida, it might be pouring here but a mile or so down the road it's still clear and sunny!

Suzanne

Like cindeea said, I'm not complaining either. There's mushrooms everywhere,but the aquifers are still low.
Toads and frogs are singing. I have been doing weeding in the rain i's fun. LOL

Felix

I'm a native Floridian, too, and to me, I see mostly the same types of changes we've always had. In other words, while the "normal" predictions would be dry winters/springs and rainy summer/fall afternoons, I've also seen years where it was all turned upside down. And I've seen those crazy years throughout my 63 years here. Also, we have NOT had a rainy summer here in the Sanford area at all. We have had the driest June and early July I can remember, with rains only just starting up again about 3 weeks ago. And barring this past week, no all day rains at all.

Yesterday, I went to Gainesville, and it rained all day up there, but I came home to find it had only sprinkled here for a short time in the afternoon, and that was all.

I guess what I'm saying is that 1) there have always been years when the weather deviated from what's considered "typical" in Florida and 2) it isn't deviating from that typical type of weather in all areas of the state, even this year.

This does not mean I don't think weather patterns as a whole are changing, because I do. Just that Florida has always been a land of alternating drought and monsoon, and it still seems that way to me, even though my area has had way more drought and very little monsoon in 2007.

Marcia

Hi All, I've been gone for what seems like FOREVER! Been away on one too many biz trips.

I'm loving the weather here in South Florida. I don't know if I'm the only one, but I usually hate the summers. This year, it seems ok. We're already in August and I could swear the nights feel much cooler than usual.

I usually cannot even go outside during August when it's usually so humid and stuffy. But this sumer is different for sure.

I am 'almost' a native Floridian (going on 22 years living here...). I remember when I was first in college here in 1989, we had --like clockwork - the afternoon showers between 2pm-3:30pm for 15-20minutes and then it would be over. I remember because I had a convertible and would have to pull over to put the top up.

Slowly, the afternoon rain pattern has moved to later in the afternoon and sometimes evening so that NOW it seems normal to have it rain around 5:30pm-6pm-7pm at commute time.

And, this week of morning and day long rain, well, that's just odd. Probably MotherNature making up for the dry spring.

I also remember,25 years ago, the rain area was so much 'defined' I loved that! You could see a sharp line, one side was totally dry, and on the other side the rain came down in sheets. (do I make sense?)

I have seen the 'defined' thing many many times. I worked in a really big orange grove in Indiantown when I was in high school and there was times we could see 2 or 3 distinctly different thunderstorms moving thru the areas around us. Now it seems the storms have a much broader front, move slower but have a lot more wind and lightning when they hit.

Still seeing it well defined here. I can be standing in my backyard, completely dry, and see a solid black line of heavy rain falling to the northwest of me almost daily. They've been getting day-long rains there, but we haven't been getting many of those here in Sanford. We've been getting an afternoon storm every 3 or 4 days and that's it.

"goin' where the sun keeps shinin' through the pourin' rain..."

Marcia

Love that Harry Nilsson song, Ma.
And yes, I see the pouring rain all around me with the sun shining on my head most days lately too.
Most pleasant are the evenings when the lightning storms move just offshore and give us a wonderful light show.
Without the awful explosive acrid smoke of those fireworks people seem to need every Friday night at the nearby Roger Dean Stadium!
Ah, civilization?