Daytona Beach, FL – The cold we’ve been experiencing the past few days is about to go away, but meteorologists are worried about a new front coming in that could be a potential breeding ground for tornadoes.
The National Weather Service expects a line of strong storms to come onshore from the Gulf of Mexico sometime Thursday night into Friday morning, pushing the cold air away but also causing the kind of atmospheric instability when multiple fronts run into one another that can lead to lots of quick tornado formation.
NWS Meteorologist Randy Lascody says this is a situation you can expect to see all winter long, noting that it’s similar to what meteorologists saw during the 1997-98 winter that generated the worst tornado damage in Florida history. 7 tornadoes in the Central Florida area were spawned between February 22 and 23 in 1998, killing 42 people.
Forecasters aren’t sure at this point precisely when the storms will roll through. Lascody says it’ll become clearer on Thursday, but the storms could potentially roll in overnight or get pushed into Friday during the day. He recommends getting a weather radio if you don’t have one already to get any tornado alerts as they come in.
The current NWS forecast has an 80% chance of rain in Daytona Beach on Friday during the day, with sustained wind gusts of around 25 miles an hour.
Highs will go into the 70’s on Friday and Saturday before a cold front moving behind the storms will leave the high below 60 degrees on Martin Luther King Day and the day afterward. Lows on MLK night will plunge below 40 degrees.
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