Tropical Storm — Eastern Alachua, Florida

2024-09-26 to 2024-09-27 · Eastern Alachua, Florida

Event narrative

The media reported tens of thousands of residents lost power. Downed trees blocked major roads. Power lines were damaged across the county. Trees fell on homes. A tree crushed through a home along SW 99th St in the Willow Bend neighborhood of Gainesville where a family resided causing one injury. A tree crushed a vehicle on the Westside of Gainesville along Newberry Rd.

At 8:53 pm on 9/26, the ASOS at the Gainesville Regional Airport (KGNV) measured a wind gust of 44 mph.

The University of Florida in Gainesville EM reported that numerous trees were blown down across campus, including a large oak tree that fell into Norman Hall and destroyed a window. There was minor building damage and vehicle damage due to fallen trees. The peak wind gusts from the UF WeatherSTEM station was 66 mph with sustained tropical storm force winds measured from about 9:30 pm through 1:30 am.

Wider weather episode

Hurricane Helene made landfall as a category 4 with peak winds of near 140 mph in the Florida Big

Bend just east of the Aucilla River Entrance in Taylor County, late Thursday evening September 26,

2024. Helene's main impact to southeast Georgia and northeast Florida was wind damage as it

tracked quickly north-northeast. The very powerful hurricane and the forward motion produced a

wide swath of wind damage across the forecast area with peak wind gusts 55 to 75 mph across the

eastern half of the area, and western zones up to 75 to 100 mph from the Suwannee Valley area

northward through interior southeast GA. The max wind gust of 100 mph was measured at the Alma

GA ASOS in the early morning hours of Friday September 27th. Given the strength of these winds,

widespread power outages, structure damage and downed or uprooted trees occurred across inland

southeast GA and portions of northeast FL. At least 1 tornado occurred, which was in Coffee county.

Maximum rainfall amounts of 3 to 5 inches were located over western half of the area.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1217435. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.