No beach weather: Florida Panhandle gets snow dusting

SHALIMAR, Fla. – Parts of the Florida Panhandle got a dusting of snow early Monday after temperatures dropped dramatically from the previous day when the thermometer was at typical beach weather.

The Okaloosa County Sheriff ’s Office posted video a deputy captured on patrol showing falling snowflakes bathed in the light of a lamppost in a store’s parking lot. Only 12 hours earlier, the temperature had been 75 degrees Fahrenheit, the post said.

Don Shepherd, a senior forecaster for the National Weather Service in Mobile, Alabama, said in a phone interview that the dusting was “just a few little flurries.”

The last time the Florida Panhandle had any significant winter weather was in January 2018 when a storm dumped snow in Tallahassee for the first time in three decades and forced the closure of schools, offices and a stretch of Interstate 10.