Meteorologists, and locals around Tampa, Florida, are reporting snow flurries in the area as the National Weather Service (NWS) warns of bitterly cold temperatures across the length of the state.
Extreme cold warnings and freeze warnings from the agency span the Sunshine State as of early Sunday, with the NWS cautioning residents of “dangerously cold” temperatures and wind chills that could lead to frostbite and hypothermia.
In a Sunday post on social media platform X, meteorologist Matt Yarosewick said that snow flurries had been reported in Tampa and Saint Petersburg. “The arctic invasion is here,” Yarosewick wrote.
Meteorologist Jeff Berardelli shared footage of flurries in Wesley Chapel, around 15 to 20 miles northeast of Tampa.
The NWS Tampa Bay also shared video of snow flurries falling outside its office in Ruskin early on Sunday morning.
“Temperatures today will only warm into the 40s and 50s,” it said. “Tonight the lows are back in the 20s and 30s.”
NWS meteorologist Tony Hurt told Newsweek previously that the last time snow flurries occurred in Tampa was in January 2010.
The reports of snow flurries come as a powerful winter storm off the East Coast triggered snow and cold alerts in several states, with bitterly cold air expected to sweep as far south as Florida on Sunday.
“In the wake of the intense cyclone, bitterly cold air will surge down [the] Florida Peninsula this morning with freezing temperatures penetrating all the way down toward the southern coastline,” the NWS Weather Prediction Center (WPC) said in an early Sunday morning forecast discussion. “Temperatures this cold have not been experienced across southern Florida since the record cold month of December 1989,” it added.
Snow Breaks 49-Year Record in South Carolina—’Stay Indoors!’
Meanwhile, NWS meteorologists in South Carolina said a new snowfall record was broken in the state on Saturday.
“0.7″ of snow fell at the Charleston International Airport yesterday,” NWS Charleston said in an early Sunday morning social media post. “This breaks the daily snowfall record of 0.6″ that was set in 1977.”
In a previous update, NWS Charleston said: “Not only is it snowing across much of the area, but temperatures have fallen into the upper teens to low 20s in many locations. When combined with winds gusting as high as 25-30 mph, we are seeing wind chills dip into the 5-10 degree range! Stay indoors!”