Jazzy weather

Well, what a weekend we had. I will start with the first part and cover the latter part in tomorrow's post. I have too much to cover to post both today. I hope everyone had a great Memorial Day.

Friday was a continuation of the same we've been seeing. Lots and lots of afternoon showers and thunderstorms... typical summer pattern. Unfortunately, it appears that no one let Ma Nature know where we happen to be in the calendar. At least we are getting some sunshine, just not when we need and want it, but I'll get into that as I discuss the whole weekend.

It started on Friday as I was leaving work and waiting for my wonderful groom to get off of work. I was headed home, but I got terrible distracted by some randomly placed cumulus towers, which I "had" to stop and shoot. Then, when he got off of work, we headed down to a very wet Jacksonville (how timely), where we quickly found the Jazz Festival and found a couple of stages playing some smooth jazz. We enjoyed that under our umbrella for a bit then grabbed some dinner out on the balcony overlooking the St. Johns River at the Jacksonville Landing, where we listened to more of the great music.After happily sleeping in, we headed back to the festival where intermittent rain showers held sound crews hostage and crowds at bay... but not for long. We visited a few of the stages (one in an old church--very cool), but stopped at one stage that seemed like it was just a few young men jamming... and then, the sassy jazz came out, the blaring sax, trumpet, deep bass... I loved it. They were jamming like crazy. Unfortunately, the weather got us locked behind a group of bag chairs and we just stayed there the whole time, with my patchy view through the irritatingly placed scaffolding. Grrr... I still got some decent shots that captured the essence of the music.We reluctantly left that stage to head to the Landing to see what was happening there. On the way to the Jacksonville Landing, we realized just how many people didn't keep away. I can't imagine how packed it would have been in better weather. The Generation Next youth talent show finals were about to start, so we stuck around for that... a 12 year old with an amazingly well trained voice... a 19 year old who could jam on a sax... and a 16 year old who lit up a piano. The pianist won, rightfully so... HE WAS AMAZING!Really amazing...Then, there is me... always keeping a watchful eye to the sky... I loved the reflections of the clouds in this building.We had a great time, and I am a new fan of B & J's coconut 7 layer bar... mmmm...

Aside from that... weather. Well, actually the lack of. We have an abnormally low incident month this May. Rarely do we see a May with such few tornadoes. Of course, it's the year when 100 scientists formed Vortex2, the great tornado hunt in order to carry out severe weather research. They have some serious Dewvoid (weatherlessness in the face of storm chasing) working against them... I feel your pain guys. Looks like Friday is the next shot, and it's not all that impressive of an area. Iowa, Illinois, the Dakotas... not great chase territory. Just to demonstrate... last May, there were 475 confirmed tornadoes... yes, folks, that's May alone. This year's May, with only 6 days left has only 211 tornado reports. When you calculate for over-count... that's only 179 tornadoes, which when compared to 475 puts us way "behind". I wonder if the guys in the field will see anything.

Have a great day!
~Dewdrop