Over the past 18 months, North Florida has dealt with three hurricane landfalls, two convective straight-line wind events, and a destructive tornado outbreak. Due to weather closure No. 7, it was a time of something completely different.
From Pensa Corda to Tarajas Lito, it was a frozen state of Fleurida.
The Great Southern Snowstorm of 2025 was one of the most impactful winter storms in history for the Gulf Coast, obliterating Florida’s all-time snowfall mark and breaking local accumulation records from central Louisiana to western Florida. destroy.
In the Eastern Panhandle, just above freezing temperatures kept the precipitation-type disturbance off the top of the snow record list, but it still brought slow accumulation to Tallahassee for the first time in 35 years.
As the snowman contorts into an icy gargoyle, we are sure you have many questions about what you just experienced.
You can blame or thank North Pole for Florida’s winter storms for literally ages
As mentioned before the storm, snow and ice in the Gulf is an extreme freak event that requires atmospheric Rube-Goldberg tricks to provide both arctic cold and sufficient moisture at the same time. This has only happened a few dozen times since the 1800s, making Florida snow about one in every 10-20 year event.
The winter of 2024-25 seemed a particularly unlikely candidate to provide this rare weather pattern. Yet another La Niña event is underway, which typically increases the trend of high-pressure scattering in the Southeast
Extremely cold outbreaks in the U.S., like the 2022 Arctic blast, can occur early in a La Niña winter, but mild, dry conditions have typically occurred by January. Nor were there any “sudden stratospheric warming” events that sometimes fracture the winter stratospheric polar vortex and cast the polar air down into the latitudes.
Instead, the preamble here is a stretch of strong polar water from its usual high-light location in the direction of eastern North America, as combined with a strong ridge of high pressure along the U.S. west coast and northward into Alaska. I can see it. That pattern leads to an air force originating from the Arctic Circle (or the literal North Pole) and directing the Polar Jet Express to the Gulf Coast.
Perhaps the closest match in meteorological history to this storm was the second wave of the Great Freeze of 1895, in which 10 to 20 inches of snow fell on the Texas coast, and Louisiana and Tallahassee got 2 inches.
The jet stream configuration ahead of this week’s snowfall is a very close match to February 1895. Plus, if we’re lucky, the biggest southward stretch, like in 1895, when a little ruckus took place in the polar regions last weekend up a ridge in Alaska.
The precise timing and structure of the weather pattern before the storm is an eerie facsimile of the other great historic Southern snows and has teed up another for ages.
Thundersnow, Thundersleet, and a record day of crushed snow
Even knowing the pieces of the puzzle were in place, the way the storm was actually full of shocking twists, sometimes literally, in light of occasional reports of thunder and lightning.
From coastal Louisiana and Alabama to the western Florida panhandle, the surprise was much heavier snowfall than expected. Although the incumbent cold air mass was largely serving, the region saw liquid equivalent precipitation of 0.5 to 0.75 inches or more, with well over 0.25 inches.
For example, Pensacola picked up 8.9 inches of snow with 0.87 inches of moisture, and Milton broke its own state record by a whopping half-foot from 1954 with 10 inches of accumulation.
Why did the model miss the totals for eastern Louisiana and southwestern Georgia?
It’s hard to say for sure, but one theory is that the water that typically runs 3 to 5 degrees above water in the West provides a deeper source of moisture than expected. The model attempts to reproduce complex atmospheric physics, but is tuned to make useful predictions under typical weather conditions.
Very rare events are not actually bailiwicks, and errors are often large for such outlier events.
Farther east, that extra Gulf moisture tweaks air temperatures a mile or so above the surface just above the freeze line, bringing a chaotic mix of precipitation types into the Eastern Panhandle.
The fact is that atmospheric temperatures are smooth and poorly behaved, especially during energetic events like this storm. Parked in Tallahassee at the peak of the storm, minutes flip from tremendous minute to minute between rain, sleet, snow, freezing rain, or all of the above, with messy divisions between above and below freezing temperatures. Lift and vertical temperature profiles were driven by local pockets.
Sleet dominated, with Tallahassee laying down an official 1.9 inches of snow accumulation (0.74 inches of liquid equivalent), good enough for third place in the local record books.
However, the National Weather Service had reports of up to 3.3 inches of snow from northern Leon County, with Blountstown and Bainbridge topping 6 inches.
That’s a bit of a bummer for snow lovers in America’s sleet capitol, but we saw much more freezing precipitation than areas just to our east. Jacksonville, as expected, was turned upside down by a bit of freezing rain and snow on the tail end of the storm after a terrifying 33 and 10 straight hours of rain.
Comparison is the thief of joy, and I hope you were able to find joy in the heart of winter, even if it’s ice.
When will the next Florida snow arrive? There is a 1% chance every winter, but there is nothing like this
For those whose winter joy is wearing thin and who are thinking of moving to Omaha (we’ve seen an inch of snow this season), we’d put those glossy Nebraska Chamber of Commerce brochures on them. You may think so.
This week brought much more typical La Nina winter conditions to Florida, pushing highs of 70 and lows of about 50 across the Panhandle, making those lingering patches of ice just a surreal and strange memory. turn it into something.
There will be no sequel to The Day After Tomorrow’s work. I did one.
Some people have asked if this type of storm will happen again. Well, sure.
There is nothing new under the sun or above the sleet. But you’ve probably been waiting for a long time, and maybe a lifetime.
This common type of event only occurs in about 1% of winters, as 2025 is comparable to 1895 for historically high snowdrifts on the Gulf Coast. There is nothing in Florida’s official or unofficial weather history that simply shows 10 inches of snow accumulating, so the true chances may be even slimmer.
But now we know that such a thing is possible, it’s new information. Really, who knows?
So, as we straighten our crooked minds following the winter storm of a generation, we hope that as we return to reality, we will capture this instantly mythologized week.
Personally, it was good to predict extreme weather that brought something other than stress and misery, unlike the other six recent events that have plagued North Florida.
Weather connects people to each other and to place. And I hope we all saw a little magic and possibility this week and in our neighborhoods. I know what I did.
So take a photo and still frame it in your mind and keep looking at the sky.
Dr. Ryan Truchelut is chief meteorologist at Weathertiger, a Tallahassee startup that provides advanced weather and climate analysis, forensic meteorology and expert witness consulting, agricultural and hurricane forecasting subscription services. For more information, visit weathertiger.com or contact ryan@weathertiger.com.
