Thunderstorm Wind — Gilchrist, Florida

2024-01-09 · near Williford, Gilchrist, Florida

Event narrative

Numerous trees were blown down across the county. Most of the damage occurred between 1:30 pm and 2 pm local time.

Wider weather episode

A strong pre-frontal squall line of strong to severe storms moved quickly eastward across SE GA and NE FL during the afternoon and exited off the SE GA coast into the Atlantic waters by the late afternoon and offshore of the NE FL coast by the evening. Strong dynamics with this system included a very strong low-level jet of 45-55 knots and 0-6 km shear of 50-70 knots, which along with good lapse rates aloft around 6.5 C/km and high dewpoints into the upper 60s created 500-800 J/KG of CAPE. These ingredients promoted threat of damaging wind gusts of 50-70 mph or greater, hail, and isolated tornadoes within more intense storms embedded within the Squall line.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (29.7200, -82.8000)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1151720. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.