- December 23, 2024
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It’s Saturday, and it's 34 degrees.
The wind is blowing the sand into the most snow-like drifts Longboat Key sees. Few are out on the coldest day the area has seen since 2018, but when some are spotted, it’s easy to tell the tourists from the locals.
Who looks like Randy headed to school in “A Christmas Story,” and who looks like they’ve been waiting for a day this warm since Veterans Day? Even Longboat Key residents are split as to how they weather the smattering of winter that bore down on Florida last week.
Steve Gunderson was born and raised in rural Wisconsin and has an entirely Norwegian family history, but, he says, the wind goes right through him. Even when he was splitting time between Wisconsin and Washington DC during his years in Congress, he knew it was getting too cold.
“I don't think there's any doubt that I've always had a weakness related to cold weather,” Gunderson said. “I'm a very fast walker and people would say, ‘Why do you walk so fast?’ I go, ‘Because I learned how to go from one warm building to the next as fast as I could.’”
He was home at Christmas and after three days of 14-20 degree days, his skin was like sandpaper and cracked open from the cold. He said it’s clear his body is even less resistant to cold weather than it was before he moved south. These days, the heat comes on faster and he bundles up sooner. He still can’t bring himself to wear his thick coats from home, though.
“I don’t enjoy the outdoors when it’s below 50 degrees,” Gunderson said. “I don’t go running when it’s below 50, because I’m spending my time being cold and trying to get warm, so yesterday I went to the gym. Usually three times a week I go running outside, but I don’t do it in this weather.”
In the Landau household, the residents are divided on their cold-weather feelings. Susan Landau hates it, but her husband Lenny and their English mastiff, Sammy, absolutely love it.
“A year ago I did buy a puffy coat because I really needed it, and sometimes when I take the dog out in the morning I wear gloves,” she said. “I think to myself, ‘I wish I had all of what I used to have (cold weather gear).’ I used to think it was terrific and then I think, ‘What happened to that person?’”
Landau is from Cincinnati and went to college at the University of Iowa, while her daughter went to Iowa State. There was plenty of winter weather to get through, she said, and in the colder months she was in the snow almost 24/7 — she loved it and would go running in it. Now she walks every day and is still toughing it out, but said she feels like she’s back in Ohio.
“Now I just can’t deal with this,” Landau said. “I came to Florida, I thought it was going to be warm. What is this about? I could be in Ohio.”
The worst thing about the cold of the past week, she said, is that it’s the damp kind that penetrates into your body. In Iowa and Ohio, the cold is drier. She’s bundled up every day and thinks wistfully of the thick woollen sweaters she used to have.
“I really don’t like it,” Landau said. “Then I think to myself, ‘Why am I such a wuss?’”
For Mary Baker, a lifelong Michigander who spends seven months a year at home in Ann Arbor, this weather isn’t really a big deal. On Jan. 25, when it was rainy, grey and 55 degrees on Longboat Key, four inches of snow dumped on Ann Arbor. Her son in Chicago said it was minus-6 degrees that morning as he went to work.
“I’m just thinking I’m lucky to be here,” Baker said. “I always know that January isn’t going to be the best month in Florida. But it’s absolutely the worst month in Michigan, so by comparison, this isn’t so bad.”
Baker said she wished the rain would stop and said that if the chill kept up for much longer than a week that she may feel differently, and she feels for the vacationers who came for a week expecting a tropical paradise. But for her part, she’s happy for the good excuse to stay indoors and read a little more. When she has to leave home, she’ll just layer up. She said she left all her down coats at home and wouldn’t wear one if she did have it with her — it’s just not that kind of weather to her.
“I just really don’t think it’s that much of an inconvenience,” Baker said. “I watch people walk by in the morning walking their dogs, and I laugh at what they’re wearing because they look like they’re going skiing … We’re from the Midwest, (so) we’re used to cold weather.”
Born-and-raised Pennsylvanian Suzy Brenner said she’s also supposedly used to the cold weather, but now, her hands get cold. Even still, as long as she keeps her hands and ears warm, she can still go for her daily runs in shorts and a T-shirt.
“I try to embrace what little cold weather we have and get out my boots and sweaters that live in the closet,” Brenner said. “I enjoy the time it’s legitimately cold because we get such long stretches of heat.”
As for Baker, she’ll keep her mouth shut when she talks to her family, who’s scattered throughout Michigan and the Chicago area.
“Nobody wants to hear you talk about cold weather in Florida because for people at home, it doesn’t even register,” Baker said. “I always think of that. I don’t have to wear boots. I don’t have to shovel snow. So I’m happy.”
