JanRN your home is beautiful, thank you for the snow. Our winters are very mild here in the tropics about three weeks of winter clothes and then it is back to shorts and tees. In summer it is very hot and very humid, thank goodness for airconditioners.
Our cyclones are just like your hurricanes, Cyclone Yasi which hit us last year was 100 miles wide with winds up to 150 miles per hour, we were only 30 miles from where the eye of the storm hit. Businesses and homes in town are still getting repaired.