WEWAHITCHKA — Tuesday was rainy, windy and generally dreary.
Wednesday, it’s going to be sunny and cold. Really cold.
The invasion of Arctic air follows a day of tornado watches and warnings, including a touchdown in Wewahitchka.
The tornado touched down shortly after 9 a.m. CST Tuesday on the south side of Wewahitchka and moved north-northeast into Liberty County, leaving some travel trailers destroyed, several homes damaged and streets impassable, city and county officials said.
“Most of the damage is from trees being blown over on them,” said Wewahitchka City Manager Donald Minchew, who spotted the tornado on Seventh Street. “We pretty well accounted for the people in the houses that were damaged. There were no confirmed injuries.”
By 3 p.m. Tuesday, crews still were working to restore power to about 200 residences and businesses, Gulf County Electric Cooperative officials said. About 100 outages in Wewahitchka were reported after power lines and poles were “taken out” by the storm.
Just over the river in Liberty County, officials said no injuries or structural damage was confirmed in the wooded Red Hill area, where the tornado was reported to have touched down after leaving Wewahitchka.
The volatile weather is the result of a warm front moving in off the Gulf, combined with a potent low headed up the East Coast that churned up winds in the upper levels of the atmosphere. That makes it “more possible to get severe thunderstorms with high winds, but also tornadoes,” according to Katie Moore, meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Tallahassee.
A cold front will drop temperatures throughout the week.
“The cold front is going to pass later (Tuesday) night and then the cold air will start moving behind it,” Moore said. “It’s going to be cold.”
Wednesday’s highs will be in the low 50s but will continue to drop, bottoming out in the pre-dawn hours Thursday in the upper 20s inland and low 30s along the water.
The possibility of freezing temperatures prompted the National Weather Service to issue a freeze watch for much of the Panhandle for Wednesday night and Thursday morning.
Thanksgiving Day and overnight temperatures will be similar to Wednesday, with highs in the mid-50s and lows near 30, with the coldest temperatures inland.
Rainfall Tuesday as of 9 p.m.
Beaches International Airport: 3.37 inches
Tyndall: 3.37 inches
Apalach: 3.66
Marianna: 1.79
