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Snow Dusts Pocket Of The Florida Panhandle

Screenshot/Twitter/Okaloosa County Sheriff

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A light snowfall dusted a pocket of the Florida Panhandle early Monday morning after temperatures plummetted in the area from a sunny 75 degrees Fahrenheit.

The spokeswoman for Okaloosa County Sheriff’s department, Michele Nicholson, wrote in an email that the sudden shift in weather wouldn’t trigger any major problems for the region and that the snow did not stick to surfaces, the Associated Press (AP) reported. A sheriff’s deputy posted a video capturing a flurry of snowflakes as they fell from the sky early Monday — it was the first major instance of winter weather since 2018. (RELATED: Florida’s Unusually Cold Temperatures Are Putting Iguanas Into A Catatonic State)

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The National Weather Service station covering Florida warned that temperatures in the region might drop below normal, the AP noted. However, senior forecaster Don Shepherd said the snow amounted to “just a few little flurries.”

In 2018, a 10-inch snowfall hit Tallahassee, forcing businesses and schools to shut down, according to the AP. One segment of the Interstate Highway 10, which cuts across the Panhandle from Jacksonville to Pensacola, also closed down at the time.

Florida is a popular vacation destination for the winter months, with so-called “snowbirds” fleeing harsh weather in the northeast for the temperate climate of the southern state. A surge of snowbirds arrived in November of 2021, The Sun Sentinel, a local Florida newspaper, reported.