TAMPA BAY: Sun turns dial to 'broil'

Well, of course. If it's three weeks after Easter and the middle of the National Hockey League playoffs, this must be the start of Florida's "other season" - those six months of merriment when daily temperatures climb into the 90s and squat there.

To find out if it's getting hotter sooner, how people are faring and other probing weather-related questions, we asked several experts on Florida weather. The first is Frank Alsheimer, a forecaster for the National Weather Service in Ruskin.

Q. When I go outside from now on, should I bring sunscreen, or just my dental records?

A. "Actually, more people in Florida die from cold than the heat. It's because we're used to the heat, and just about everything is air-conditioned. We're not used to really cold snaps."

Q. But don't you think temperatures are getting warmer? That pretty soon all of our clothes will be made out of Reynolds Wrap?

A. "Certainly the last 15 years have been warmer than the previous 15, but that's such a small number of years in terms of overall climatology. It's impossible to know if it's a permanent trend."

Q. So why does it stay so hot in Florida for so long?

A. "We reach 90 usually earlier than most of the rest of the country with the exception of the desert southwest, and that has to do with the stronger angle of the sun down here in the south. We have more intense solar insolation.

Q. Insulation? Like Owens/Corning?

A. "No. Insolation. It has to do with direct heat transfer from the sun."

Q. Miami has a really awful NBA team called the Heat. Should the city rename the equally inept Marlins the Humidity? So we could say it's not the Heat that's so bad, it's the Humidity?

A. (pause) "Not bad."

Another expert on hot weather is Amy Pinley, 28, who was piloting a Mister Frosty truck Tuesday in downtown St. Petersburg.

How much better is her business when the weather warms up?

"It skyrockets," she said. "I'll do $250 a day during the week and almost $500 on weekends. It's double what I usually make."

But what people really want to know is . . . HOW DO YOU STAND THAT TERRIBLE MUSIC? The theme from The Sting. Over and over. Morning 'til night.

"It drove me nuts the first few weeks," she said. "But now I wear headphones and listen to 98 Rock."

Mark White sat sweating Tuesday behind the wheel of the tram he drives at Busch Gardens.

"We've had people in the parking lot strip down in front of their cars as they leave," said White, 20. "They think we can't see them, but we can."

At least he can escape sights like that. But he's stuck when park patrons, sweaty and tired, pile aboard for a ride to the parking lot.

"Some people smell like they haven't showered in three days," White said. "You just drive faster and drop them off quicker."

A few blocks away, 43-year-old Edward Hill, tending a parking lot at Seventh Avenue and 15th Street, has only a worn umbrella, a withering tree and a cooler full of water to ward off the heat.

"My old tree here, it used to put out good shade," Hills said, gazing at the empty limbs. "But it looks like it shed on me."

Hill said he could sit in his car between customers. He flashes a look at his weathered Dodge Diplomat.

"But it ain't got no A/C."

Going to be a long summer.

- Staff writer Brady Dennis contributed to this report.

Hot days ahead

Most very hot days (mid to upper 90s) occur in late May and June, because there is less chance of the afternoon thunderstorms that keep temperatures down.

Because Florida is a peninsula cooled by winds from the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, the state's record high is among the lowest in the country. Even extreme northern states such as Michigan (112), Minnesota (114), Wisconsin (114), Montana (117) and North Dakota (121) have higher record highs than Florida.

Source: National Weather Service

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