Tropical Storm — Coastal Duval, Florida

2024-09-26 to 2024-09-27 · Coastal Duval, Florida

Event narrative

Numerous downed trees and power lines were reported across the county. Multiple trees fell on cars and homes causing total destruction to roofs in Arlington Hills. Peak wind gusts were 71 mph at Mayport Naval Station. At least 224,000 customers were without power during the height of the storm based on the JEA outage map. There were around 300 Emergency Road Access Team deployments to remove trees and power lines from across county roads and homes. Radio communication towers at St. Johns River park went down due to lack of power/AC. A tree fell on a 3,000 gallon propane tank and JAX Hazmat had to respond to contain propane gas leak (Opal Lane). About 360 people went to 5 shelters that the county opened. Schools and city offices were closed on 9/26 and 9/27.

The JAX Port Authority reported some partial power outages at our Blount Island facility. A few aluminum roofing panels from a small structure were shorn off in high winds and wrapped around a telephone pole. Approximately 100ft of perimeter chain-link fencing was knocked over at Blount Island. There was a bent STOP sign on Talleyrand terminal at the main gate. Several CCTV cameras were affected by power loss. Minor flooding in retention ponds. The passenger cruise ship ELATION was waiting to port in JAX offshore during the storm.

Far outer rainbands began to impact the county on the afternoon of Wednesday, 9/25. Wind gusts near 40 mph were reported at coastal locations, including a 42 mph gust at the JFRD Station 40 near Mayport at 3:10 pm local time. At 10:57 pm on 9/25, a mesonet site at Huguenot Park measured a wind gust of 42 mph. At 10:30 am on 9/26, the Craig Airport ASOS measured a gust of 45 mph. At 12:10 pm on 9/26, a mesonet site at 2 miles WNW of Mayport measured a wind gust of 47 mph. At 1:10 pm, a mesonet site at 1 mile NNE of Jacksonville Beach measured a wind gust of 48 mph. At 1:20 pm, a mesonet site in Neptune Beach measured a wind gust of 44 mph, a mesonet site at JFRD Station 40 measured a wind gust of 49 mph, and a mesonet site at Huguenot Park measured a gust of 44 mph. At 3:43 pm, a mesonet site near Ft Caroline on the St. Johns River measured a wind gust of 41 mph. At 6:28 pm, the Fort Caroline mesonet measured a gust of 48 mph. At 6:50 pm, a mesonet station in Jacksonville Beach measured a gust of 51 mph. At 6:52 pm, the Naval Station Mayport AWOS measured a wind gust of 49 mph. At 7:10 pm, the mesonet site at JFRD Station 40 measured a gust of 59 mph. At 7:28 pm, the Mayport Naval Station AWOS measured a wind gust of 52 mph. At 7:52 pm, the AWOS at Naval Station Mayport measured a wind gust of 52 mph. At 7:53 pm, the ASOS at Craig Airfield measured a wind gust of 48 mph. At 8:20 pm, the JFRD Station 40 station measured a gust of 54 mph. At 8:40 pm, a mesonet site in Jacksonville Beach measured a gust of 60 mph and the mesonet site in Neptune Beach measured a gust of 54 mph. Also at 8:42 pm, the mesonet site at Huguenot Park measured a gust of 57 mph. At 8:43 pm, the mesonet site near Ft Caroline on the St. Johns River measured a wind gust of 60 mph. At 8:52 pm, the AWOS at Mayport Naval Station measured a gust of 63 mph. At 8:53 pm, the ASOS at Craig Airport measured a gust of 52 mph. At 10:10 pm, the AWOS at Naval Station Mayport had a gust of 68 mph and a mesonet site at Jacksonville Beach had a gust of 67 mph. At 10:20 pm, the mesonet station in Neptune Beach had a gust of 65 mph, then at 11:50 pm, the site had a gust of 75 mph. At 12:40 am, the mesonet site at the JFRD Station 40 measured a gust of 80 mph.

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 1217473. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.