Mention of the term “monsoon” brings two thoughts to mind:
India and lots of rain.
Florida rains are not monsoonal, although occasionally in casual conversation – maybe once a blue moon – you hear them misstated that way.
Where you won’t hear the term “monsoons” is on a televised meteorology report, in the newspaper, or – to my knowledge – in any of my Florida weather textbooks … not even for the sake of debunking its misuse.
And I mean anywhere:
I’ve combed through every index I can lay my hands on.
That makes this a “case-closed, door-shut, pound-the-gavel” verdict:
Monsoons don’t exist in Florida.
The problem is that while I have a vague recollection in the back of my mind of reading a newspaper article that laid the misconception of the enigmatic Florida monsoon to rest,
I can’t quite recall its specifics,
or even find proof the article existed (perhaps I was dreaming):
It was in the pre-internet age.
That makes this a hydrologic version of the eternal expedition to find Bigfoot, or the noble quest for the long lost Ivorybill –
Not finding either doesn’t prove they don’t exist,
Rather, maybe we’re just not looking hard enough … or have our heads turned in the wrong places.
I need to see it in writing, in an officially sanctioned textbook (one that I will most definitely buy), something along the lines of … “Florida’s wet season technically does not qualify as monsoonal rains.”
That will be my proof that Florida monsoons do not exist.
But I have my hopes set high:
I have a hunch that this is a hydrologic Bigfoot I may very well find.
