JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — When it comes to 250 years of weather, there’s no better place to start than with our founding fathers.
Thomas Jefferson, the so-called author of the Declaration of Independence and third President of the United States, considered weather one of his most important hobbies. He took weather observations every day at 4 a.m. and 4 p.m. He wanted to prove to Europeans that the weather was sunny and mild in “the new land.”
Benjamin Franklin is even better known for his interest in weather. His kite and lightning experiment in 1752 proved that lightning is electricity. Franklin also determined weather had a tendency to move west to east. Franklin was the first to map the Gulf Stream off the U.S. east coast.
The tropics have left their mark on American history. On October 2, 1898, the strongest hurricane to ever hit Georgia made landfall at Cumberland Island. Nearly 200 people were killed, and a 15-foot storm surge inundated Brunswick, setting a local record. Fernandina Beach was heavily damaged.
Hurricane Dora in 1964 was an even more infamous hurricane. The category two storm roared ashore on September 10th, just north of St. Augustine.
President Lyndon B. Johnson visited the next day to declare it a “national disaster.” His visit may have been overshadowed by The Beatles, who played the Gator Bowl that night in the high winds in Dora’s wake.
In 1992, Hurricane Andrew hit South Florida as a category five storm. It stripped some homes to their foundation. The storm led to stricter building codes in Florida that were implemented in 2002.
Just two years later, those codes were tested by four hurricanes in one year. Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne all had major impacts on Florida in a six-week period.
In 2017, Hurricane Irma hit the Florida Keys, then moved up the west coast of Florida. It caused the most severe flood in downtown Jacksonville since 1849. The same storm shut down a river ferry in Putnam County that had been running in one form or another since the 1700s.
Florida has also been susceptible to other kinds of weather disasters. The Great Snow and Ice Storm of 1989 crippled Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia, resulting in the only White Christmas on record in Jacksonville.
In 1894 and 1895, back-to-back hard freezes destroyed orange groves that once produced citrus as far north as Jacksonville, leading some farmers to abandon citrus farming.
One of the most severe wildfire seasons in 1998 shut down parts of Interstate 95 in Flagler County. Those wildfires continued well into the summer. The “Highway 82” fire in Brantley County, Georgia, destroyed more than 100 homes in April 2026.
It all shows – Jacksonville can be a weather smorgasbord.
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