If you thought driving to your job a few miles from home through yesterday's wind and thunderstorms was a dicey proposition, consider yourself lucky. According to the National Weather Service, three tornadoes actually touched down in the region.
WFTS says the service confirmed three EF-0 tornadoes touched down during Thursday's extreme weather, in Myakka City, Lake Wales and Fort Meade. While EF-0 tornadoes are the least powerful, they can still do plenty of damage with winds up to 85 miles and hour.
Additionally, straight-line (i.e. non-tornado) winds damaged some 80 mobile homes in a Zephyrhills community yesterday morning. No one was hurt, but five of the homes were subsequently deemed unsafe to live in.
Friday's forecast calls for less extreme weather, but it's still pretty windy and wet out there, so be careful on your commute.
This article appears in Dec 20-27, 2018.