Your cart is currently empty!
An obliterated record and a 1% chance
In the last 18 months, North Florida has dealt with three hurricane landfalls, two convective straight-line wind events, and a destructive tornado outbreak. For weather shutdown No. 7, it was time for something completely different.
From PensaCOLDa to Tallahassleet, it was the Freeze State of Flurryda.
The Great Southern Snowstorm of 2025 is one of the most impactful winter storms in history for the Gulf Coast, obliterating Florida’s all-time state snowfall mark and smashing local accumulation records from middle Louisiana to western Florida.
In the eastern Panhandle, slightly above freezing temperatures aloft led to precipitation-type mayhem that kept us off the top of the snow record lists, but still brought sleddable accumulations to Tallahassee for the first time in 35 years.
As your snowmen contort into icy gargoyles, I’m sure you have many questions about what on earth you just experienced, so let’s dig into the before, during, and after of this astonishing event.
You can literally blame or thank the North Pole for a Florida winter storm for the ages
As I mentioned before the storm, snow or ice on the Gulf Coast is an extreme outlier event, requiring an atmospheric Rube Goldberg contraption to deliver both Arctic cold and sufficient moisture at the same time. This has occurred no more than a dozen times or so since the 1800s, making any kind of Florida snow a roughly one in 10-to-20 year event.
Winter 2024-25 seemed a particularly unlikely candidate to deliver this rare weather pattern. Yet another La Niña event is underway in the Pacific, which typically leads to an increased tendency for high-pressure ridging in the Southeast
U.S. extreme cold outbreaks, like the Christmas 2022 Arctic blast, sometimes occur early in La Niña winters, but usually by January we’re experiencing mild and dry conditions. Nor has there been a “sudden stratospheric warming” event of the kind that sometimes fractures the stratospheric polar vortex in mid-winter and flings polar airmasses down to lower latitudes.
Instead, the preamble here looks to have been the stretching of a strong polar vortex from its normal high-latitude position in the direction of eastern North America, coupled with a strong ridge of high pressure along the U.S. West Coast, north to Alaska. That pattern leads to an airmass originating in the High Arctic (or the literal North Pole) taking the polar jet express to the Gulf Coast.
Probably the closest match in weather history to this storm is the second wave of the Great Freeze of 1895, in which 10-20” of snow fell on coastal Texas and Louisiana and Tallahassee picked up 2”.
The jet stream configuration preceding this week’s snowfall is an exceedingly close match to February 1895. Furthermore, as luck would have it, a smaller-scale disturbance clambered up and over the Alaskan ridge last weekend just as it did in 1895, with the polar vortex at its maximum southward stretch.
The precise timing and structure of the weather pattern before the storm was an uncanny facsimile of other great historical southern snows, teeing up another one for the ages.
Thundersnow, thundersleet and a day of shattered snow records
Even recognizing the pieces of the puzzle were in place, the way the storm actually played out was full of shocking twists — sometimes literally, in light of the occasional reports of thundersnow and thundersleet.
From coastal Louisiana and Alabama to the western Florida Panhandle, the surprise was far heavier snowfall than anticipated. While an incumbent cold airmass held serve aloft, the region saw anywhere from 0.5-0.75” or more of liquid-equivalent precipitation, far exceeding expectations of a little more than 0.25”.
For instance, Pensacola picked up 8.9” of snow on 0.87” of moisture, and Milton smashed its own state record from 1954 by a whopping half a foot, with a 10” accumulation.
Why did models miss on totals between eastern Louisiana and southwestern Georgia?
While it’s hard to say for sure, one theory is that waters running three to five degrees above normal in the western Gulf provided a deeper moisture source than anticipated. Remember, models try to replicate the complex atmospheric physics, but are also tuned to make useful forecasts in typical weather conditions.
Extremely rare events aren’t really their bailiwick, and errors are often large in outlier events like this one.
Further east, that extra Gulf moisture may have nudged air temperatures a mile or so above the surface just over the freezing line, bringing a chaotic mix of precipitation types to the eastern Panhandle.
The fact is atmospheric temperatures aren’t smooth and well-behaved, especially in an energetic event like this storm. With the messy division between above and below freezing temperatures parked over Tallahassee in the peak of the storm, the maddening minute-to-minute flips between rain, sleet, snow, freezing rain, or all of the above were driven by highly localized pockets of lift and vertical air temperature profiles.
With sleet dominating, Tallahassee ground out an official 1.9” snow accumulation (on 0.74” of liquid equivalent), good enough for third-place in the local record books.
However, the National Weather Service has reports of up to 3.3” of snow from northern Leon County, while Blountstown and Bainbridge topped 6”.
While that is a bit disappointing to snow lovers in America’s Sleet Capitol, we also saw far more frozen precipitation than areas just to our east. Jacksonville, as expected, only flipped over to a little freezing rain and snow at the tail end of the storm after 10 straight hours of the dreaded 33 and rain.
Comparison is the thief of joy, and I hope you were able to find joy in the heart of winter, even if it was icy.
When will the next Florida snow come? A 1% chance each winter but nothing like this
For those whose winter joy is wearing thin and are thinking of moving to Omaha (where they have only seen 1” of snow this season), you might want to put down those glossy Nebraska Chamber of Commerce brochures.
This week looks to bring far more typical La Nina winter conditions to Florida, with highs across the Panhandle pushing 70 and lows around 50 turning those lingering patches of ice into nothing more than a surreal and bizarre memory.
There is no sequel to The Day After Tomorrow in the works. One and done.
Some have asked me whether this kind of storm will this ever happen again. Well, certainly.
There is nothing new under the sun or over the sleet. However, you will likely be waiting a long time, and perhaps a lifetime.
With 2025 rivaling only 1895 for the historical high snowdrift on the Gulf Coast, this general kind of event might only have around a 1% of occurring in any given winter. There’s simply nothing like a 10” snow accumulation in Florida’s official or unofficial weather history, so the real possibility may be even slimmer.
But now we know such a thing is possible, which is new information. So really, who knows?
So, as we straighten out our bent minds following the winter storm of a generation, I hope we take a piece of this instantly mythologized week with us as we return to reality.
Personally, it was nice to forecast extreme weather that brought something other than stress and misery, unlike the other six recent events that have afflicted North Florida.
Weather connects people to each other and to places, and I hope we all saw a bit of magic and possibility in the world and in our neighborhoods this week. I know I did.
So take the photographs and still frames in your mind, and keep watching the skies.
Dr. Ryan Truchelut is chief meteorologist at WeatherTiger, a Tallahassee start-up providing advanced weather and climate analytics, forensic meteorology and expert witness consulting, and agricultural and hurricane forecasting subscription services. For more information, visit weathertiger.com or get in touch at ryan@weathertiger.com.
Have you ever come across a record so thoroughly destroyed that it seemed impossible to salvage? That was the situation I found myself in recently when I stumbled upon a vinyl record that had been completely obliterated.
The cover was torn and faded, with chunks missing and water damage evident. The record itself was cracked in multiple places, making it a near-impossible task to even attempt to play it.
But despite the sorry state of this record, something compelled me to hold onto it. Perhaps it was the mystery of what music lay hidden beneath the scratches and cracks, or maybe it was the challenge of trying to restore something that seemed beyond repair.
As I carefully examined the record, I realized that there was still a 1% chance that it could be salvaged. With the right tools and a whole lot of patience, I set out to try and bring this obliterated record back to life.
Hours turned into days as I painstakingly cleaned and repaired the record, using every trick in the book to try and smooth out the cracks and scratches. And finally, after what felt like an eternity, I placed the needle on the record and held my breath.
To my amazement, the sound that emerged was clear and beautiful, a testament to the power of perseverance and the magic of music. Despite the odds stacked against it, this obliterated record had defied all expectations and emerged victorious.
So the next time you come across something that seems beyond repair, remember the story of this record and the 1% chance that turned into a miracle. Sometimes, all it takes is a little faith and a whole lot of determination to bring something back from the brink of destruction.
Tags:
- Record-breaking achievements
- One percent probability
- Unprecedented success
- Rare accomplishments
- Historical milestones
- Remarkable feats
- Unbelievable statistics
- Slim odds
- Unmatched performance
- Incredible results
#obliterated #record #chance
Leave a Reply