Strong winds, wild weather interrupts Floridians and Georgians

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Strong winds knocked out power for hundreds in Northeast Florida on Sunday while Georgians were warned against nonessential travel due to icy conditions.

In Northeast Florida, gusts of more than 50 mph have been recorded. One 58 mph wind gust nearly set a record at Jacksonville International Airport (JAX), according to the National Weather Service.

A flight tracking service, Flight Aware, showed 30 canceled flights and 31 delays to or from JAX.

Wild weather was expected for the region and much of the country this weekend. In South Florida, the National Weather Service confirmed an EF2 tornado touched down in Collier County-- even blowing over a semi on Interstate 75.

Electrical outage maps showed several hundred customers without power Sunday afternoon.

The most outages were reported in Jacksonville, there were around 700 addresses without power at 3 p.m., more than half of those were reported in Northwest Jacksonville with 393 outages in the 32219 zip code alone. Power was restored by 5 p.m.

Clay Electric was managing outages in Putnam County. Its outage map showed 83 outages Sunday afternoon.

In Nassau County, Florida Power & Light (FPL) showed more than 90 residences were without utilities at 3:30 p.m., but those were quickly restored a few minutes after 4.

Georgians were prepared for snow. The state department of transportation had more than a million pounds of brine on hand to keep roads open for essential travel, but continues to urge drivers to stay home.

South Georgia customers appeared mostly spared from winter weather and power outages on Sunday afternoon. Georgia Power was working about a dozen outages total in Camden and Glynn Counties. In North and Central Georgia, though, more than 60,000 residences were without power.

Video from the world-famous store Sunrise Grocery in Blairsville, Georgia captured some falling snowflakes Sunday morning.