Why So Rainy Tampa Bay?

     I was recently asked why there has been so much rain this summer in the Tampa area, so I'll first like to give you the rainfall totals for June, July, and the total so far for August, and they are a bit higher than our "normals" or "averages."

June 2013: 11.30 inches
July 2013: 10.19 inches
August 2013: 10.81 inches (so far)

These are higher than our "average" but keep in mind that that an average numbers are not necessarily typical values and can often mask data that varies quite significantly.  I however cannot complete this post until August has ended to have a complete data set to analyze so look for a much more complete post to come in the first few days of September!

Mammatus Clouds

     While Driving to dinner the other night with my friends, I noticed a fairly rare sight in the sky. Pictured below are mammatus clouds. Named so because of their breast-like shape, these clouds are associated with strong thunderstorms and most commonly they occur at the base of a cumulonimbus (anvil shaped thunderstorm cloud).  Mammatus clouds aren't dangerous and usually occur after severe thunderstorms.  If you think these are neat clouds, it's all the more reason you should watch the sky for unusual sights!  

Welcome!

Welcome to Florida Weather Farm, a website intended to stimulate interest in the weather around them. I invite people to send any questions, comments, pictures, or anything else related to the weather and I will do my best to answer all questions.  I also aim to present interesting stories that are related to meteorology.  I am open to any suggestions to the design and layout of the website.  Either leave a comment or send me an email (kkenmoody@gmail.com) with the subject FWF so that I can answer them faster.