Memorial Day in Boca: ceremony at 9, plaque unveiling at 10:30
Ceremony details, Monday sanitation changes, a seven-week bridge closure, and five Boca Museum shows for the long weekend.
Memorial Day in Boca: ceremony at 9, plaque unveiling at 10:30
A cemetery ceremony, a City Hall plaque unveiling, and a shifted sanitation week shape Boca's Memorial Day Monday.
Memorial Day is the first real pause in the city calendar before summer programming takes over, and Boca runs it the way it has for years — a ceremony at the cemetery, a smaller unveiling at City Hall, and a quietly modified schedule for everything else.
The Commemorative Ceremony runs Monday, May 25, 9:00–10:00 a.m. at Boca Raton Cemetery, 451 SW 4th Ave. The program features guest speakers, a flag-folding ceremony, and a wreath presentation; Boca Raton Police personnel will be onsite to direct traffic and assist with parking, with parallel parking along the grass frontage in front of the cemetery. The event continues rain or shine. At 10:30 a.m., a plaque unveiling for Memorial Park takes place on the south side of City Hall, facing Palmetto Park Road; park on the west side of City Hall.
City offices and services are closed Monday — that includes the Downtown Library. There is no sanitation service Monday: Monday's pickup shifts a day later to Tuesday, Tuesday's to Wednesday, and the schedule slides through the rest of the week. All parks, beaches, beachfront parks, and playgrounds are open with regular hours. The Boca Raton Community Center is closed, while Sugar Sand Community Center runs 10 a.m.–5 p.m. and Swim & Racquet Community Center runs 7:30 a.m.–5 p.m., splash pad and playground included.
NOAA forecasts a below-normal 2026 hurricane season
NOAA's outlook for the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season landed this week: a 55% chance of a below-normal season, 35% near-normal, and 10% above-normal.
The season runs June 1 through November 30. Forecasters added the caveat that always holds in Florida — Atlantic ocean temperatures are expected to be slightly warmer than normal and trade winds slightly weaker, both of which can fuel storms — and reminded residents "it only takes one storm to make for a very bad season."
NOAA is rolling out a few changes to its products this year, too. The cone graphic will now include inland tropical storm and hurricane watches and warnings for the continental U.S., and the National Hurricane Center is testing an experimental cone designed to better capture variations in both a storm's direction and timing. Useful context to absorb before June 1, especially if you've moved here since last hurricane season.
George Bush Boulevard Bridge closes June 1 for almost seven weeks
If your beach route cuts through Delray over the George Bush Boulevard Bascule Bridge, change plans starting Monday, June 1.
Palm Beach County will fully close the bridge to vehicles and pedestrians through Monday, July 20 for critical deck repairs. Officials evaluated partial access and overnight reopening and concluded neither was safe — closing the structure outright is faster and lower-risk than stretching the work across the whole summer. Detours route through Federal Highway (U.S. 1), Atlantic Avenue, and Ocean Boulevard. For anyone who used George Bush to slide over to A1A north of Atlantic, this is a seven-week reset.
Picasso, no passport required: five shows at the Boca Museum
If the heat chases you indoors over the long weekend, the Boca Raton Museum of Art has five exhibitions open right now.
The headliner is Modernisms: Art from the Manes Collection, with masterpieces by Picasso, Léger, Renoir, and more — the museum is calling it "Picasso in Boca." Four other shows fill out the slate. TYPOE GRAN: Anatomy of a Practice is the Miami-based artist's first museum solo, an immersive look at his mixed-media practice. Exploring Jess: Beat Generation Visionary brings together the radical collages and paintings of Jess Collins, who left atomic chemistry to make art in 1950s San Francisco and helped shape the Beat Generation. Frédéric Bruly Bouabré: Selections from the 404 Art Collection presents drawings by one of Africa's most revered contemporary artists, on loan from the 404 Art Collection. It's the kind of long-weekend plan that doesn't end in sunburn.
A Boca-based shelter heads to Tennessee for 146 animals
Tri-County Animal Rescue says it joined a Tennessee hoarding-case response involving 146 animals.
Tri-County Animal Rescue, the Boca Raton-based shelter, said it dispatched a team to Rutherford County, Tennessee this week to help Animal Rescue Corps after 146 animals were found in overcrowded and neglectful conditions.
The rescue described the case as severe, with dogs and cats needing medical care before any adoption path can begin. For Boca readers, the practical thing to watch is the shelter's next intake and donation updates as the animals move from emergency response into recovery.
One last thing: lovebug season is winding down
Those clouds of lovebugs you've been scrubbing off your grille should taper as May closes.
UF/IFAS researchers note females swarm in April and May, then return again in August and September, and there's a longstanding theory that predators may play some role in their gradual decline — though funding for nuisance-bug research is thin. Best advice from the entomologists: skip the DIY scrub. Pay for a car wash. Some of the solutions abrasive enough to remove lovebugs will also strip your finish.