[Jed Eckert]

Didn't see this posted yet. Heads up fellow Floridians.

[NormsRevenge]

Hit 100 today here!

Degrees.. Not winds.

Good luck!!

[Road Warrior ‘04]

Latest sketty models have it taking nearly the same path as Charlie in ‘04.

[metmom]

Ping

[HotHunt]

We live in north central Florida on a 30 acre cattle farm 25 miles east of Gainesville. We have had more rain this summer than we've had the past four summers. Our garden rain gauge has recorded 18" of rain since August 1st. Everything is saturated and soggy. The weather forecast is for rain everyday for the next two weeks, especially next week with this tropical storm headed our way.

Our hay is ready to cut but it has water sitting in the field. It will go bad before we can mow and bale it. We can't get our mower, rakes and baler out in the field because they will sink into the ground. It is what we feed our cows in the winter with. We will have to buy it instead at $60-70 a bale for 36 bales we normally use. That's a $2,200 expense plus transportation costs that we don't normally have.

The soil is sandy and normally rainfall drains rapidly into the ground. But with so much rain, the water table is almost on the surface of the ground. We have a low area in our bull paddock that is normally a mud hole. Here are some pictures of it today after 3.5" of rain in two hours on Wednesday evening. Lightning also struck our horse during that storm and he died. Not a good day for the farm.

This is normally a dry mud hole:

Oak tree trunks under water in background. This will eventually kill them is it doesn't dry out soon:

Our hay pasture with water sitting on the surface:

[jpsb]

"“Erika is forecast to weaken to a tropical depression on Saturday,” Jack Beven, a senior hurricane specialist at the center in Miami, wrote in a forecast. “Erika could dissipate to a trough of low pressure during or after its passage over Hispaniola.”

[Democrat_media]

They and the media first said a hurricane Erica would hit Florida from the east side

Now Erica dissipated. funny how they didn't predict that