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Plan to wine and dine Mom on Mother's Day? Check out what FL restaurants are offering Sunday, May 12, for on-site dining and to-go deals.

Deb Belt, Patch Staff

|Updated Fri, May 10, 2024 at 8:42 am ET

FLORIDA — It's time to firm up your plans to treat Mom and the family to brunch or dinner on Mother's Day, which is Sunday, May 12.

Check out Florida Patch's restaurant guide to Mother's Day on-site dining specials and takeout deals.

Note that some specials run all weekend, and others may require reservations or advance ordering. So don't delay!

And to all mothers, grandmas, stepmoms, foster moms and aunties, too, Happy Mother's Day from Patch!

Here are freebies and deal courtesy of RetailMeNot:

Find out what's happening in Tampawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The folks at Offers.com also have some dining deals for Mother's Day:

Bravo Italian Kitchen: Enjoy Mother’s Day brunch until 3 p.m. on Sunday, May 12 at Bravo Italian Kitchen. If you don’t want to dine in, then you can celebrate your mom at home with the restaurant’s Mother’s Day package which includes a salad, a main course, one side and a dessert.

Buca di Beppo Italian Restaurant: Treat Mom to a family-style meal in a comfortable, semi-private dining room at Buca di Beppo or choose a Mother’s Day to-go package that feeds five to 10 people and comes with your choice of a salad, pasta, entree and dessert.

Joe’s Crab Shack: On May 12 check out the limited Mother’s Day menu filled with delicious appetizers, entrees, buckets and more.

Kona Grill: Enjoy brunch, dinner and to-go options from Kona Grill this Mother’s Day. On Sunday morning, bring Mom to Kona Grill for the popular brunch menu and don’t forget to order her the rosé. Or let her sleep in and join Kona Grill later for a Mother’s Day dinner featuring prime rib surf & turf.

McCormick & Schmick’s: The restaurant will serve a three-course holiday prix-fixe, menu starting at $50 featuring favorites like seafood alfredo, open blue cobia, filet mignon and more.

Morton’s The Steakhouse: Celebrate Mother’s Day with a wagyu filet and lobster tail for $99. Plus, the restaurant will serve an exclusive cocktail called lavender bouquet. Be sure to make a reservation.

Olive Garden: Enjoy one of Mom’s favorites, either in the restaurant or at home with favorites like the large family-style lasagna bundle, which serves up to 12 people for $96.99. Order online and have your meal delivered to your car curbside at your local restaurant.

Outback Steakhouse: Dine in at Outback Steakhouse and order the steak, lobster and two sides for $19.99.

P.F. Chang’s: An exclusive Mother’s Day meal is being offered at P.F. Chang’s this year. The restaurant is taking reservations now for Mother’s Day, so call or go online to claim your spot.

Romano’s Macaroni Grill: Mother’s Day specials include the premium feast for five for $30 that features a choice of an entree — either spaghetti bolognese, chicken fettuccine alfredo or buffalo chicken mac + cheese — salad, peasant bread and chocolate chip cookies.

Ruth’s Chris:The Mother’s Day Brunch menu will include the decadent cajun tenderloin eggs Benedict. The restaurant will also be serving a prix fixe menu for dinner. Be sure to make a reservation to take part in the festivities.

Seasons 52: Enjoy brunch from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. at Seasons 52 on Mother’s Day with a brunch that will feature your choice of a starter, soup or salad, entree and more. Guests celebrating the holiday at home may enjoy a Mother’s Day Green Box to-go that serves four to six people starting at $155.

Happy Mother's Day from Patch!

Florida skywatchers should see about 58% totality Monday during a solar eclipse. See viewing events in the region, and the latest forecast.

Deb Belt, Patch Staff

FLORIDA — Excitement is building in Florida for Monday’s 2024 total solar eclipse, a celestial phenomenon that Americans won’t see again for two decades.

Only our yellow star’s spiky corona will be visible in the 15 states in the path of totality, which extends from Texas to Maine in the United States. We’ll see a less dramatic blockage of the sun in Florida with about 58 percent totality in Tampa and 46 percent in Miami as the moon slips between the sun and Earth, according to a searchable NASA map.

Below is your complete guide to viewing the sun’s disappearing act in Florida:

When You’ll See What

Here are the eclipse times to keep in mind on Monday (all times local):

Find out what's happening in Tampawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

What Will The Weather Be Like?

As of Friday, the National Weather Service forecast calls for mostly clear and sunny skies on Monday with a high of 87 degrees.

What’s Happening Around The Tampa Region?

Great Explorations Children’s Museum, St. PetersburgThe museum will organize a group viewing of the eclipse at Crescent Lake Park at 2:45 p.m. After the eclipse, attendees are encouraged to explore the museum’s planetarium, which offers free entry to members that day. Non-members will pay a standard fee.

Hillsborough County Public Library CooperativeVarious libraries in the Hillsborough County Public Library Cooperative will stream the eclipse on NASA TV starting at 1:35 p.m. These include:

The Arthenia L. Joyner Library will host a viewing party for children ages 6 to 12.The 78th Street Library will also stream the movie “Dune” from 3 to 6 p.m.

James Weldon Johnson Community Library, St. PetersburgThis eclipse viewing party includes crafts and activities, such as constructing a viewer and experiments with UV beads. A limited number of eclipse glasses will be available.

Museum of Science and Industry, Tampa

There will be hands-on activities starting at 2 p.m. in the Primary Colors Amphitheater. Each ticket includes a pair of solar eclipse glasses. Cost is $18.50 per adult and $14.50 per child.

North Greenwood Library, ClearwaterThe library will begin distributing eclipse-viewing glasses at 1:45 p.m.

Pier 60 Sugar Sand Festival, ClearwaterThe first 2,500 people at this viewing party on Clearwater Beach will receive collectible eclipse glasses.

Pinellas County Library CooperativeVarious libraries in the Pinellas County Library Cooperative are hosting eclipse viewing parties, including:

St. Petersburg College Planetarium at the Gibbs Campus in St. PetersburgThe SPC planetarium will host a free public viewing of the eclipse. Eclipse viewers and specially equipped telescopes will be available in the “quad” area of the St. Petersburg/Gibbs campus, near the Natural Science building, beginning at 1:30 p.m.

Be Sure To Protect Your Eyes

Except during the brief total phase of a total solar eclipse, when the sun’s face is completely obscured by the moon, it is not safe to look directly at the sun without protective eye equipment, according to NASA.

The American Astronomical Society has a list of vendors whose eclipse glasses have been certified as safe. The organization specifically warns against bargain hunting for eclipse glasses from online marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay or Temu because counterfeit glasses have infiltrated retail chains. Wherever you acquire protective eyewear, it should meet or exceed the international safety standard of ISO 12312-2:2015.

Keep this in mind, too: Viewing any part of the bright sun through a camera lens, binoculars, or a telescope without a special-purpose solar filter secured over the front of the optics will instantly cause severe eye injury.

One other safe way to view the eclipse is with a do-it-yourself pinhole projector that shows the sun on a nearby surface. The American Astronomical Society has pinhole projector DIY instructions.

A Bigger Deal Than 2017

The duration of totality in the United States will be up to 4 minutes and 24 seconds in Eagle Pass, Texas, beginning at 1:27 p.m. CDT. For comparison, the eclipse reaches totality about an hour later, at 3:29 p.m. EDT in Jackman, Maine, and lasts about 3 minutes and 26 seconds.

Totality will last twice as long as in the coast-to-coast solar eclipse in 2017, and the number of people in the path of totality — an estimated 32 million people — is much greater.

Besides Texas and Maine, states seeing totality include Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont and New Hampshire.

Eclipse Opens Scientific Window

Another thing that makes the 2024 solar eclipse markedly different from the 2017 event is that it’s occurring as the sun is at its peak activity cycle, called solar maximum. In 2017, the sun was approaching minimum. This year’s eclipse opens a unique window for scientists to study the sun’s corona.

“The eclipse that we have coming up in 2024 is going to be a very different eclipse from what we saw in 2017 because this corona that we see is going to have much more structure,” Lisa Upton, a solar scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, told Scientific American.

The violent solar storms occurring right now are responsible for auroras that dance far outside their Arctic and Antarctic ranges but also carry the potential to knock out internet satellites for months, take down power grids, and interfere with navigation satellites. Right now, these events happen with little warning, but scientists are working on their ability to predict space weather.

When Is The Next Eclipse?

It will be March 30, 2033, before another total solar eclipse touches the United States, and that’s only on the tip of Alaska. It’ll be Aug. 12, 2044, before the next eclipse sweeps across the lower 48 states, with parts of Montana and North Dakota experiencing totality.

Don’t Worry About This

Legends in ancient cultures attributed the temporary disappearance of the sun to celestial dragons and other mythical creatures, wolves and even giant frogs who either ate the sun or stole it. Among some cultures, the solar eclipse was a foreboding sign the gods were angry or that the siblings the sun and the moon were quarreling, according to timeanddate.com. In many cultures, “eclipse” means to eat.

Among the Pomo, an indigenous group of people who lived in the Northwest United States, the literal translation of “eclipse” is “got bit by a bear.” The legend is that a bear mixed it up with the sun and took a bite out of it and then decided to have a slice of the moon as well, causing a lunar eclipse.

Scientists and astronomers long ago solved the riddle of the solar eclipse — it’s simply what happens when the moon masks the sun as it passes in front of it. Still, some superstitions remain in modern culture, including that solar eclipses are dangerous for pregnant women and their unborn children, or that food cooked during an eclipse is poisonous.

In Italy, though, the superstitions aren’t as gloomy as the sky when the moon blots out the sun. Instead, the eclipse is prime flower planting time; it’s believed they will bloom brighter and more colorful than flowers planted at other times of the year. Other claims about negative effects on human behavior have been debunked by scientists.

A report from Hillsborough County Fire Rescue said the blaze started when maintenance equipment caught fire.

By

Published April 2|Updated April 2

A Tampa-based Fortune 500 mining company warned Florida environment regulators that a fire at its Riverview phosphate plant last week may have released a harmful pollutant as plastic piping burned, according to a pollution notice.

Mosaic said the fire on its property off U.S. Highway 41 ignited polyethylene piping, which released “an indeterminate quantity” of a chemical compound called 1,3 Pentadiene into the air, according to a notice the company filed to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection on Friday.

The compound is a flammable health hazard that can cause eye and respiratory irritation, according to a classification document from the World Health Organization and the International Labour Organization. Its vapor is heavier than air and it can move along the ground.

It’s not clear just how much of the compound was released, but Mosaic told Florida’s environmental agency that it may have been above the “reportable quantity,” or the threshold that a private company has to report to regulators. The 1,3 Pentadiene compound is considered a hazardous substance under federal regulations, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lists 100 pounds as the reportable quantity.

Related: Firefighter injured during Mosaic fire at Riverview phosphate plant

Jackie Barron, a Mosaic spokesperson, cited Hillsborough County Fire Rescue’s responses from last week when asked if there was a public health threat as pipes burned. The department “addressed concerns regarding the smoke noting strong sustained winds were pushing the smoke offshore and away from the neighboring community,” she wrote in a statement.

“Those winds continued through the night and into the next day. As far as I am aware, (fire rescue) has repeatedly stated there was no risk to public health,” Barron wrote.

While the company said it continues to investigate the cause of the fire, an incident report from Hillsborough County Fire Rescue, obtained by the Tampa Bay Times, said maintenance equipment caught fire, which spread to nearby grass and to multiple large polyethylene pipes.

When firefighters first responded, they had trouble containing the blaze due to high westerly winds and “water supply issues” because there were no fire hydrants, the report shows.

A day after the blaze was controlled, the fire jumped a containment line made by firefighters and burned about an acre of land, a second incident report states. A responding fire crew was sent to another location to the east of that blaze because fire “was threatening some pipes that were important to the operation of the plant.”

One firefighter was hospitalized in stable condition on the second day of the incident. He was released later that day, according to fire rescue spokesperson Rob Herrin.

In an update to investors last week, Mosaic said production at the Riverview plant may be affected for four to six weeks, and that the plant “sustained limited damage to ancillary operations.” At the time of the fire, the plant was producing phosphate products to be exported to Brazil, the company said in its update. The plant continues to run as employees work normal hours making repairs and cleaning up the site, Barron said.

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In a statement last week, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection said the burned pipelines had been deactivated by Mosaic before the fire reached the lines. It’s unclear what was carried in the pipes, but based on the state’s inspection last week, there was no indication that process water — used in the phosphate manufacturing process — or gypsum byproduct was released from the site.

The fire-affected area is concentrated on roughly 31 acres on the plant’s southeast corner of the closed western gypsum stack, according to state regulators.

Up next:Sea levels are rising but parts of Florida are also sinking, research shows

A fire that coughed dense black smoke from a Riverview phosphate plant property on Monday evening rekindled on Tuesday, prompting firefighters to keep watch over the property in case more fires started.

The Monday evening blaze burned roughly 200 acres at the facility owned by Mosaic, a Tampa-based Fortune 500 mining company, before it was contained after several hours. The fire had engulfed plastic piping, though no buildings were damaged, according to forestry and fire officials.

On Tuesday, the fire slipped past a containment line set by firefighters the night before, said Patrick Keogh, the Lakeland district manager at the Florida Forest Service. That blaze had scorched another 10 acres of grass at the plant property by Tuesday afternoon, officials said.

One firefighter was sent to the hospital in stable condition on Tuesday, according to Hillsborough County Fire Rescue. Officials didn’t release any information about the firefighter’s injury.

The initial report of a fire came around 5:45 p.m. Monday. Videos of the blaze showed thick black smoke billowing from the property. A news release from the department Monday night said the fire had grown to “involve high-density polyethylene pipes,” and video footage appears to show several pipes on fire.

Working with Mosaic emergency staff Monday night, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office and Florida Forest Service crews used air operations, brush trucks and water tanker shuttles to contain the fire, according to a news release. Keogh said two members of the forest service were on the scene helping with the brush fire Monday night, and one was there Tuesday.

The Tuesday fire, which was burning farther to the east than the original blaze, swallowed one plastic pipe, and when crews suppressed it, another pipe caught fire, according to the fire department.

“Due to the extreme heat from yesterday’s event, the magnitude of the fire, and the wind conditions, we are battling a brush fire at the location,” Hillsborough fire officials wrote in a news alert Tuesday.

Firefighters wore respirators as they fought to put out flames on a plastic pipe about 2 feet in diameter, according to fire spokesperson Rob Herrin.

The burning polyethylene is what caused the “impressive” smoke coming from the plant, Herrin said. He added the smoke “is not affecting anybody that isn’t on scene.”

Hillsborough fire officials were setting up a “fire watch” on Tuesday in which responders would observe conditions at the plant, according to the agency.

In updates posted on social media, Mosaic said the observable smoke was from high-density polyethylene plastic pipes affected by the fire and that the company was assessing how its operations at the plant would be affected.

Keogh, with the Florida Forest Service, said he had received an incident report from forestry officials showing the blaze was caused when a piece of equipment caught fire. The report was not made immediately available for review. Jackie Barron, a spokesperson for Mosaic, said in a text message that the company is not speculating on the cause of the fire until an investigation is complete.

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The mining company said the fire “is an important reminder of the risk of fires during Florida drought season and the need to be vigilant.”

While the area is in the midst of Florida’s dry season, which usually brings only a few inches of rain between November and April, it’s not the same as a drought, according to Florida state climatologist David Zierden. Still, he added, wildfire activity tends to peak in March and April as temperatures rise and the dry season continues.

“Drought definitely affected the area this past summer, but all indicators are running close to normal now,” Zierden wrote in an email. In February, rain gauges at Tampa International Airport measured more than 3 inches of rain. For comparison, the airport recorded 0.46 inches of rain in February 2023.

A spokesperson for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection said staff members were looking into the incident, but the agency could not immediately provide more details.