Tropical Storm — Western Duval, Florida

2024-09-26 to 2024-09-27 · Western 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 mid-westside and Arlington Hills. A tree fell down on a mobile home along Ozo Ln S Thursday night and the fallen debris resulted in the fatality of a toddler. Shingles were blown off of multiple homes in the Bainebridge neighborhood along Pecan Park Rd. Peak wind gusts were 72 mph at Jacksonville International Airport. 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. All morning flights at Jacksonville International Airport were canceled on 9/27. About 360 people went to 5 shelters that the county opened. Schools and city offices were closed on 9/26 and 9/27.

Far outer rainbands began to impact the county on the afternoon of Wednesday, 9/25. At 6:33 pm on 9/26, the ASOS at the Jacksonville International Airport measured a wind gust of 40 mph. At 11:50 pm, the Jacksonville International Airport ASOS (KJAX) had a gust of 72 mph.

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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 1217476. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.