Extreme Cold/Wind Chill — Calhoun, Florida

2025-01-22 · Calhoun, Florida

Event narrative

Dangerously cold wind chills of 10-15 degrees occurred.

Wider weather episode

A historic winter storm affected the tri-state area during mid January. A shortwave embedded within a larger 500mb trough dove south over Utah before sharpening and moving over the Four Corners region on the 20th. The shortwave arrived in the northwestern Gulf during the evening of the 21st before moving over the region on Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. While that was happening, a strong 1046 mb surface high moved out of Montana and into the Central Plains as a 1042 mb high over Oklahoma. Meanwhile, a frontal zone was developing over the northwestern Gulf with warm air advection over the top of it providing ample lift. This produced historic snowfall along much of the northern Gulf coast, including much of the tri-state area.

The freezing line set up over a Port St. Joe to Tallahassee to Valdosta line. Areas north of the line received several inches of snow while those over that line picked up a few inches of accumulating sleet. Freezing rain was the primary precipitation type along the coast of Franklin County, where the state climatologist shared pictures of significant icing on the trees. In general, 5-9 inches of snow fell across southeastern Alabama, while 4-8 inches of snow fell across southwest Georgia and the Florida panhandle. Locally higher amounts fell across the western Florida panhandle.

Impacts were significant. In addition to numerous impassable roads, the weight of the snow caused numerous greenhouse roofs to collapse, resulting in millions of dollars in agriculture damage across the Florida panhandle. In some cases, damage to the nursery industry was worse than Hurricane Michael in 2018. Extreme cold followed in the wake of the winter storm, resulting in snow and ice remaining on the ground for a few days.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1231518. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.