Suncoast Stormwatch

No, I'm not making this up.

There was a mixture of snow/sleet in West Central Florida late last night and early this morning as a small amount of moisture moved into the area along with dropping temperatures.

We haven't had snow or sleet in West Central Florida since 1996, and it hasn't  snowed in the Tampa area since  January 17, 1977, when WTVT meteorologist Roy Leep was the only local Tampa area meteorologist to predict that it would snow. Tampa had a reported snowfall of .2 inches that day.

We've also seen a few temperature records broken this week across the area. Back in December, we were complaining about record warmth, and now we're going to have near record cold over the weekend. Compared with the winter weather woes of Europe, we really don't have much to complain about. The situation could be much worse.

The forecast for this weekend calls for near record temps again. Next week though, it looks like things should start to warm back up. We could be back to normal by the middle of the week.

Here are some pictures of the sleet that I took at my house. (It was on the roof and car)