Storm threat persists into weekend as experts survey potential tornado damage in Perry

Severe weather continued through Thursday night with potential tornadoes racing through Perry and more heavy wind, rain and hail in the forecast.

A wide swath of the Big Bend area, including Tallahassee, was under a severe thunderstorm warning until 1:15 p.m. The area remains under a severe Thunderstorm watch until 3 p.m.

The National Weather Service in Tallahassee issued multiple tornado warnings throughout Thursday night into early Friday morning for Taylor, Jefferson, Dixie and Lafayette Counties until 6:30 a.m.

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A local social media page for Taylor County news posted a severe weather update that came from the NWS stating that at 4:08 a.m., a storm capable of producing a tornado was located over Perry, moving east at 30 miles per hour. The weather alert recommended affected areas take cover as a precaution.

Teams will be surveying the damage in three areas that show signs of tornadoes, said a spokesperson for the NWS in Tallahassee. The results will show wind speeds, level of damage and officially declare whether there was a tornado.

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Still scrambling after Wednesday’s bouts of storms that left 22,000 customers without power in the capital city, efforts to repair powerlines and clear debris continued throughout Thursday and into the night in Tallahassee.

Crews worked through a second night to restore power to many residents who still were experiencing outages, according to a Friday morning City of Tallahassee update. As of Friday at 10:45 a.m., about 80 people are still experiencing power outages from the storms rolling through since Wednesday afternoon, according to the city of Tallahassee’s power outage map.

Residents can check progress at https://outagemap.talgov.com/ or can call 850-891-4968 for additional assistance.

Forecasters are projecting another round of showers Friday morning as storms travel from the west into the Panhandle.

“Be ready for damaging wind gusts and be weather aware!” NWS Tallahassee said in a social media post.

More heavy storms are expected Friday and into the weekend. A Slight Risk of severe storms will extend into Saturday, according to a NWS Tallahassee weather update on social media. Damaging winds, a tornado or two, hail and flash flooding are possible.

Elena Barrera can be reached at ebarrera@tallahassee.com. Follow her on Twitter @elenabarreraaa.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Possible tornadoes in North Florida; severe weather threat into weekend