Georgia
A rural Georgia town in mourning has little sympathy for dad charged in school shooting
Suspect arrested after opening fire inside Georgia school killing four
Police say they arrested a 14-year-old student accused of opening fire on his classmates and teachers at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia.
WINDER, Ga. – Lifelong Winder resident John George was about 14 years old when he was first given a gun to hunt – the same age as the suspect charged with gunning down four people at Apalachee High School on Wednesday.
George remembers his father imposed strict rules about when and how he could use a deadly weapon at that age. And when George became a father himself, he said he was the same way with his three children, all of whom own guns as adults.
As a strong supporter of the Second Amendment, George was skeptical when he heard that both the teenager and his father had been charged with murder and other crimes in connection with the attack in the city more than 50 miles northeast of Atlanta. But he, like many other parents in the community, came to believe the state’s historic prosecution is justified after learning that Colin Gray was accused of giving his son access to an “AR-platform style weapon” knowing the teen had been struggling. Prior to the shooting, Gray told authorities investigating a tip about threats “to shoot up a school” that his son had been bullied at school and was upset by his parents’ recent divorce.
More: Shackled before grieving relatives, father, son face judge in Georgia school shooting
“I’m a very responsible gun owner myself, and I do know what it means, and everyone should be,” George said. “If you’re going to own a gun, you should be responsible with it and be responsible for it, not put it in the hands of kids.”
As Winder, a tight-knit, community of less than 30,000, came together on a rainy Friday evening to grieve the loss of two teachers and two students, parents expressed value for Second Amendment rights, safe gun ownership and parental responsibility, but a consensus emerged among mourners who spoke to USA TODAY: The suspect should not have had access to a gun.
Tragedy strikes a close-knit community
The texts from Jose Solis’ 15-year-old daughter, Kristina, said, “There’s an active shooter. I love you.”
The sophomore at Apalachee High School sent the frantic message from the classroom next to where the shooter opened fire. Witnesses have told reporters the younger Gray slipped out of math class and returned with an automatic weapon.
As Kristina was evacuated from the building, she noticed a puddle of blood in the hallway, Solis, 42, told USA TODAY during a candlelight vigil at Winder’s Jug Tavern Park Friday night.
More: Georgia’s Romanian community mourns teacher killed in Apalachee shooting
“Somebody had dragged their bloody hands on the lockers,” he said.
“It breaks your heart,” Solis said. “You’re incapable of doing anything because you’re so far away.”
As shots rang out, Denis Barlov’s son Amar, an eleventh grader at Apalachee, called his mom to say I love you. He texted his parents saying, “I don’t wanna die” and “Im shaking.”
In just six minutes, four people were dead, according to U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, a Republican who represents Georgia’s 10th congressional district, which includes Winder.
Mason Schermerhorn, Christian Angulo, both 14, Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53, were gone.
More: ‘Great’ dad. ‘Caring’ brother. Families mourn Georgia high school shooting victims.
Barlov, a soccer coach at Apalachee, coached Christian. He said he often spent more time with the team than his own family, and when he saw the 14-year-old’s picture released as one of the victims, his blood pressure shot up.
“I hate it,” he said. “I just can’t get over it.”
Nine others were injured in the chaos. Teachers used new wearable panic buttons to alert law enforcement, a move Chris Hosey, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, said prevented an even worse tragedy.
Now, Solis struggles to let his daughter out of his sight in Winder, which is dotted with blue and yellow memorials, flowers, balloons and signs honoring the victims. His wife works at a different school in the district, which closed all its schools for the rest of the week, so she stayed home with Kristina. “If that had not been the case, I wouldn’t be at work. I would be watching my daughter, making sure she’s OK,” he said.
“You were supposed to be comfortable sending your kid to school, not thinking that something like this was going to happen,” Solis added.
Barlov chose to move his family to Winder because he thought it was the safest out of four towns he was considering.
But now, he feels that the uniquely American danger is nationwide.
“If you look at any country in the world, there’s no school shooters,” Barlov said. “It’s only right here.”
Who’s to blame?
The traumatic moments some Winder parents lived through as they waited to hear their children were safe have stirred a deep anger at the boy’s father, Colin Gray, 54. As a gun owner, Barlov would never expose his kids to his weapons, he said.
“You knew what this kid was capable to do,” said Barlov, 42.
Gray, who appeared briefly in court Friday in front of more than a dozen family members and victims, faces two counts of murder in the second degree, four counts of involuntary manslaughter, and eight counts of cruelty to children in the second degree, under a relatively new Georgia law that lets prosecutors charge adults for allowing minors to suffer “cruel or excessive physical or mental pain.”
This marks only the second time in the U.S. that parents of an accused mass school shooter have been charged for deaths. The charges come months after the conviction of Jennifer and James Crumbley, the parents of a 15-year-old who shot and killed four of his classmates at his Michigan high school, a first-of-its-kind prosecution that captured national attention and set a precedent for holding parents and guardians legally responsible for the violent actions of their children.
Nick Suplina, senior vice president for law and policy at Everytown for Gun Safety, previously told USA TODAY that the case involving the Crumbleys shows that “parents can – and should – be held responsible when they disregard public safety.”
“The fact that Mr. Gray bought his son a weapon of war as a present – months after being investigated for making threats to shoot up a school – is a complete and utter dereliction of responsibility, both as a gun owner and a community member,” said Suplina, adding that the verdict against the Crumbleys “should have sent a clear message to people like Mr. Gray.”
Solis said he hopes law enforcement “does what they have to do.” In the meantime, Winder faces a long road to mourn and rebuild, he said. “We will definitely recover, but it won’t be easy.”
‘He was responsible for him’
Among the sea of families gathered for Friday’s vigil miles away from the courthouse where Gray and his son appeared earlier that day, many said that being a parent, like gun ownership, is a grave responsibility. If someone fails to take that seriously, they should face the consequences.
Antonio and LLasbet Montes, who have two kids at Apalachee and one at the middle school next door, said they’re heartbroken for the shooting victims’ families and larger school community. They can understand why the suspect’s father is charged in the shooting.
”Us, as parents, are responsible for the actions of our kids, I mean at least until they become adults,” Antonio said.
“He should be responsible for his (son’s) actions,” Llasbet echoed. “He was responsible for him.”
More: Why an ominous warning didn’t stop Georgia school shooting
As for gun access, Antonio added, “Not everyone should own a gun, especially underage kids. I’m not against guns. It’s just that they should have better control of guns.”
Stanley Olds, a parent to a child at Winder Elementary School, said he believes that Colin Gray was aware that his son had a problem but ignored it.
“He knew, and still fed into it,” Olds said. “I think it’s rightful that he’s charged.”
Standing at the vigil with his family, Olds said, “The eight [cruelty to children] counts is less than it could be. He endangered 1,900 kids that were in the high school that day. Four people died, but it could have been a lot worse.”
Dion Muldrow has served as the band director at Apalachee High School for the last five years and been an educator for two decades. Muldrow has children of his own at the neighboring middle school. He too says he understands why Gray is facing charges along with his son.
“Our kids are our responsibilities,” Muldrow said. “If one of my children smarts off to a teacher, it’s my responsibility to address that.”
‘They failed that kid’
Many in the community are equally angry at a system that let the suspect slip through the cracks.
In May of 2023, the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center picked up anonymous tips about online threats containing images of guns to commit a school shooting from an unidentified location. The FBI determined that the posts originated in Jackson County and turned over the evidence to the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office, which interviewed the suspected shooter and his father, who said that he had hunting guns in the house but his son did not have unrestricted access to them.
There was no probable cause at the time for an arrest or additional law enforcement action, officials said on social media. So the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office passed on information to local schools.
Barlov struggles to understand how law enforcement and school officials failed to pick up on issues in the Gray household and prevent the shooting.
“Honestly, this could be prevented if the FBI and Jackson County did their job,” he said.
Relatives of the suspect have said the teen struggled with his mental health in the face of a tumultuous home environment.
More: Colt Gray, 14, identified as suspect in Apalachee High School shooting: What we know
His grandfather, Charles Polhamus, accused Colin Gray of being verbally abusive to the suspect and his mother in an interview with CNN. His aunt, Annie Brown, told the Washington Post the younger Gray “was begging for help from everybody around him,” and his grandmother had gone to the school to ask for help from the counselor.
The suspect’s mother, Marcee Gray, told Brown she notified the school counselor the morning of the shooting that there was an “extreme emergency” and her son needed to be found, according to text messages and phone records obtained by the Post. Brown and Polhamus both declined to comment, and Gray did not immediately respond to a request for comment from USA TODAY.
“They failed that kid,” Barlov said. “That kid should have received help when he asked for help.”
Robin M. Kowalski, a psychology professor at Clemson University in South Carolina who has studied shootings at K-12 schools and colleges and other mass killings, stressed that teachers, classmates, law enforcement and parents all have a role to play in identifying the warning signs that a young person is at risk of committing violence.
“The burden of it doesn’t fall on just one person,” she said.
Where to draw the line between parent and child?
Though the Georgia shooting bears eerie similarities to the Crumbley case, if Gray goes to trial, the outcome could differ dramatically, given the social and cultural differences between the two communities, according to Ekow N. Yankah, a professor of law and philosophy at the University of Michigan. He pointed to a civil case in Texas last month where a jury declined to find the parents of a 17-year-old gunman who killed eight of his classmates and two teachers at Santa Fe High School in 2018 legally liable for their son’s actions.
Though many in the community said it’s clear the suspected shooter shouldn’t have had access to guns, Gray told investigators that his son was being ridiculed “day after day after day” and he was “trying to teach him about firearms and safety” to get him interested in the outdoors and away from video games, according to a transcript of the conversation. The father described a photo from a recent hunting trip of his son with blood on his cheeks after shooting his first deer, calling it “the greatest day ever.”
In 2023, Colin Gray told investigators that, although he had rifles in the house for hunting, his son did not have “unfettered access” to them, according to a report from law enforcement obtained by USA TODAY.
“He knows the seriousness of weapons and what they can do and how to use them and not use them,” Colin Gray said.
Yankah said this doesn’t excuse the father’s actions. But he said there are many parental decisions that in one community may “seem totally outrageous, but in other communities, is totally normal, like taking your kid hunting and teaching him about guns.”
Still, Yankah worries the precedent set by convicting parents of mass shooters could lead to prosecutorial overreach. He questions whether a parent could later be prosecuted for failing to secure their car keys if their child injures someone while driving under the influence. “There comes a point where a parent should be able to say, ‘I’ve done everything I can, but this child’s actions are theirs and not mine.’ And where that line is is awfully hard to know,” he said.
And Yankah said the criminal justice system can’t be used to solve the underlying social problems that lead to mass violence.
“It’s clear that what we have is a problem with guns and gun regulation and the idea that we can prosecute our way out of it one parent at a time strikes me as just depressing and doomed to failure,” he said.
Back in Winder, at the town’s vigil, Muldrow called charging Gray’s father the right thing to do, even if it’s difficult.
“I feel like justice was served,” he said. “Law enforcement and the courts are doing what they feel is best. And so I trust the system, and I trust their decisions.”
As Muldrow spoke with USA TODAY at the vigil, at least a dozen students rushed over to hug him.
“I got to see a lot of my kids tonight,” Muldrow said. “Seeing this sense of community is uplifting. And it shows us that we’re going to be able to get through this.”
Contributing: Ryne Dennis, Jeanine Santucci, Trevor Hughes, Christopher Cann, and Wayne Ford, USA TODAY
Georgia
A Georgia Wildlife Haven Forged by Fire and Peat Nears UNESCO Recognition – Inside Climate News
FOLKSTON, Ga.—The world’s smallest heron hops from blade to blade in a patch of tall grass, testing its footing above the dark water as it searches for an evening meal.
“This was already worth the trip out today,” Joshua Howard said earlier this month from a gray flat-bottomed tour boat just a few yards away. The tiny creatures, called Least Bitterns, are secretive birds, not easy to spot.
With one quick movement of its neck, which seems to take up most of its body, the tiny heron plunges into the water and comes up with a fish. Howard and his guide continue down the swamp between walls of Spanish moss-adorned cypress trees and alligators, hoping to find more of the birds and wildlife that call the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge home.
By July, the vast swamp Howard has visited since childhood and still tries to reach at least once a week could be internationally recognized as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site.
The Okefenokee, on the Florida border in southeast Georgia, hosts the largest blackwater swamp in North America, a slow-moving wilderness roughly five times the size of Atlanta. It began forming hundreds of thousands of years ago, as the Atlantic Ocean retreated and left behind Trail Ridge, a long, low fossilized beach dune, and a shallow depression that trapped water between the ridge and higher uplands to the west.
The Okefenokee is a blackwater swamp, meaning its dark waters are stained by tannins released from decaying vegetation and cypress trees. Beneath the dense canopy, the water takes on the color of steeped tea, reflecting cypress trunks and drifting lily pads like dark glass.
The refuge was established in 1937 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, following a series of visits from Cornell biologist Francis Harper. Harper had come to admire both the swamp’s landscape and its people, but it was his wife—who had once tutored Roosevelt’s children—who ultimately helped push the president toward protecting the land.
The refuge’s latest conservation effort now depends partly on another layer of federal and international politics. The Okefenokee’s UNESCO nomination comes amid renewed uncertainty over the United States’ relationship with the organization.
Earlier this year, President Donald Trump moved to again withdraw the United States from UNESCO, though the withdrawal would not take effect until December—months after a decision on the Okefenokee nomination is expected. The United States also remains part of the World Heritage Convention, the international agreement governing World Heritage Sites.
In addition, World Heritage designations have continued in the United States during previous periods when the country was formally withdrawn from UNESCO, including under both Trump and President Ronald Reagan. The Okefenokee effort has also received support from prominent Republicans, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, who served as Trump’s agriculture secretary.
Still, regardless of shifting politics around UNESCO, the landscape at the center of the nomination remains largely unchanged.
Today, the Okefenokee stands as a protected wilderness of blackwater channels, peat and dense wetland forests, supporting a rich array of wildlife and plant life.
A great blue heron and a barred owl perch among Spanish moss in the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. Credit: Ryan Krugman/Inside Climate News
As Howard floated through the swamp at the refuge’s eastern entrance for about an hour and a half, he saw nearly 200 alligators, owl fledglings, hawks, herons and more. What he somewhat incredulously called an “above average” number of encounters was partly driven by drought conditions that pushed animals toward remaining water, though abundant wildlife sightings are far from unusual.
Across the swamp, an estimated 15,000 alligators inhabit the blackwater alongside almost 250 bird and 64 reptile species. Black bears and bobcats move through the uplands, and there are rumors of Florida panthers wandering the refuge. It is also a stronghold for endangered species, including red-cockaded woodpeckers, wood storks and eastern indigo snakes.
To fully experience the Okefenokee, visitors often paddle deep into the backcountry by canoe or kayak, traveling through areas inaccessible to motorboats. Along the way, they pass open prairies filled with lilies, wildflowers and carnivorous plants, including the Okefenokee giant pitcher plant, which can grow more than four feet tall and traps insects inside its tubular leaves.
Some visitors spend nights on raised wooden platforms scattered throughout the swamp, with multi-day trips carrying paddlers far into the blackwater wilderness. Yet even with those routes, only about 5 percent of the Okefenokee is currently accessible to humans.
Despite being one of the best-preserved wetlands in North America, and especially on the eastern seaboard, the Okefenokee has repeatedly faced pressure from industry and development. Before it became a wildlife refuge and federally designated wilderness area nearly a century ago, logging companies cut through vast cypress forests, disrupting habitats and the natural systems that shaped the swamp.
Later, the Suwanee Canal Company attempted to drain the Okefenokee to clear the way for development. The company planned to carve a canal through Trail Ridge and connect the swamp to the Suwannee River, but water repeatedly flowed back into the basin. The project ultimately collapsed, driving the company into bankruptcy before the canal could be completed.
More recently, the Okefenokee has faced renewed pressure from a high-profile mining dispute near Trail Ridge and continued development across the Florida border. Yet the swamp’s beauty and biodiversity continue to draw roughly 800,000 visitors each year—and now the attention of UNESCO.
The Okefenokee was first placed on the United States’ tentative UNESCO World Heritage list in 1981, but the nomination stalled for decades. In 2023, the Department of the Interior authorized work on a formal nomination, a push driven in large part by advocates including Kim Bednarek, executive director of Okefenokee Swamp Park.
The nonprofit, which runs tours and educational programs near and in the refuge, helped lead the campaign and raise money for the years-long nomination process. To qualify, researchers and advocates had to demonstrate the swamp’s “outstanding universal value,” the central standard for World Heritage designation.
The nomination was formally submitted in January 2025. Later that year, scientists with the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which advises UNESCO on natural sites, visited the swamp as part of the evaluation process. Advocates are now awaiting a recommendation from the organization ahead of a final decision expected this July at the UNESCO World Heritage Committee meeting in Busan, South Korea.
UNESCO’s standard of “outstanding universal value” is reserved for places considered significant not just to one country, but to humanity. Advocates and scientists argue the Okefenokee qualifies because of its biodiversity and the remarkable condition of its peatlands, which have remained largely intact for thousands of years and are a natural carbon sink.
Peatlands form when organic material builds up faster than it decomposes. In the Okefenokee, still blackwater, low oxygen levels and acidic conditions—created largely by tannins from cypress trees—slow decay enough for layers of plant matter to accumulate over thousands of years.
“We do not have a similar peatland in the world in the subtropics,” said Hans Joosten, one of the world’s leading peatland experts. According to Joosten, the swamp’s location—sandwiched between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic—provides the humidity and rainfall needed to sustain this rare subtropical peatland.
An inch of peat can take more than 50 years to form. In parts of the Okefenokee, those layers reach more than 15 feet deep, storing an estimated 124 million tons of carbon and forming one of North America’s most significant peat systems.
Many of the estimated 15,000 Alligators in the Okefenokee are tagged as part of research initiatives. Credit: Ryan Krugman
The swamp’s Muscogee Creek name, often translated as “land of the trembling earth,” reflects what lies beneath its surface. Deep peat can shift, swell and occasionally rise toward the top, where visitors may see methane bubbles break through the blackwater or floating mats of peat drifting at the surface. Those peat mats can become platforms for new plant growth, reshaping the swamp as they move and settle.
The biodiversity hotspot is supported by another cycle, one much faster than peat formation. The swamp is frequently reshaped and renewed through natural wildfires. The fires clear dense vegetation and invasive species, return nutrients to the soil, and maintain the open conditions needed for fire-dependent ecosystems like the longleaf pine, one of the most endangered forest types in North America.
“To be put on the same list as places like the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone would just be amazing,” Howard said with a Southern drawl as he floated along the remnants of the Suwannee Canal.
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Howard, tall and broad with silvering hair and an easy smile, had arrived at the swamp after a long day working as a school administrator in Charlton County. “You want to know why I think this place deserves to be on that list?” he asked. “Because when I got here this evening, I was stressed and now I am not.”
Howard has been coming to the swamp for almost 50 years and has spent the last seven serving as president of Friends of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, a nonprofit that helps raise money for its preservation. While the group is not directly involved in the UNESCO bid, Howard said its members strongly support the designation.
If approved in July, the designation would make the Okefenokee Georgia’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site and the first national wildlife refuge in the country to receive the status.
For Bednarek, the recognition would do more than honor the swamp’s ecology. It could fundamentally change how the Okefenokee is seen internationally. National wildlife refuges typically operate with far less tourism, funding and global visibility than national parks.
“They have this iconic brand that refuges don’t,” Bednarek said. UNESCO World Heritage status, she said, functions differently. “It’s a global brand that people travel far and wide to see.”
For now, though, the Okefenokee remains what it has long been: a slow-moving wilderness of blackwater, peat and cypress.
As dusk settled over the swamp, Howard’s guide cut the boat motor and the sounds of insects and distant birds filled the blackwater again. Methane bubbles continued rising quietly to the surface, signs of the trembling earth beneath the water.
In July, delegates in South Korea will decide whether the Okefenokee receives World Heritage status. But the swamp itself will keep moving at its own pace.
About This Story
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Ryan Krugman is a recent graduate of Columbia University’s Climate School focusing on climate change reporting and communications. He also holds a Bachelor’s degree from St. Lawrence University where he studied Environmental Science and Sociology. As a former Inside Climate News fellow, he is now reporting on climate and environmental issues in New England and Georgia.
Live updates from Athens, Georgia as the Bulldogs take on Liberty in game two of the Athens Regional.
The Georgia Bulldogs are back in action this afternoon as they are set to take on the Liberty Flames for game two of the Athens regional. The Dawgs are coming off a dominant victory over Long Island =, in a game that concluded earlier this morning following a rain delay.
With a win, the Bulldogs will advance to face the winner of a matchup between Liberty and the victor of Boston College and Long Island. First pitch for that game is scheduled to take place this Sunday at 5 p.m. As action continues in Athens, stay tuned with Bulldogs on SI for more updates from today’s game.
Georgia Bulldogs vs Liberty Flames Live Updates:
Editor’s Note**: This article will be updated periodically as action continues throughout today’s game
Top of the First (UGA at Bat)
- Tre Phelps singles to left center field for his first hit of the afternoon.
- Daniel Jackson homers to right center field. Georgia leads 2-0.
- Rylan Lujo flies out to right field.
- Brennan Hudson is walked on a 3-1 count.
- Kenny Ishikawa flies out to right field.
- Ryan Wynn grounds out to second base to retire the side. Georgia leads 2-0.
Bottom of the First (Liberty at Bat)
- Tanner Marsh singles to the pitcher.
- Riley DeCandido strikes out swinging.
- Tanner Marsh steals second to put a runner in scoring position.
- Jordan Jaffe singles to right center field. Tanner Marsh scores. Georgia leads 2-1.
- Jaxon Sorenson is walked on a full count. Jaffe advances to second.
- Nick Barone reaches first on a fielder’s choice. Sorenson is tagged out at second. Jaffe advances to third and scores on a throwing error. Game is tied 2-2.
- Nick Barone is tagged out trying to steal second to retire the side. Game is tied 2-2.
Top of the Second (UGA at Bat)
- Jack Arcamone flies out to right field.
- Kolby Branch is walked on a full count.
- Ryan Black fouled out to the catcher.
- Tre Phelps is walked on a full count. Branch advances to second.
- Daniel Jackson is walked. Tre Phelps advances to second. Kolby Branch advances.
- Rylan Lujo grounds out to third to retire the side. Game is tied 2-2.
Bottom of the Second (Liberty at Bat)
- Easton Swofford grounds out to shortstop.
- Landon Scilley is walked on a 3-1 count.
- Kyle Hvidsten is walked on a 3-0 count. Scilley advances to second.
- Josh Campos lines out to right field.
- Tanner Marsh strikes out swinging to retire the side. Game is tied 2-2.
Top of the Third (UGA at Bat)
- Brennan Hudson flies out to right field.
- Kenny Ishikawa homers to right field. Georgia leads 3-2.
- Ryan Wynn homers to center field. Georgia leads 4-2.
- Nick Arcamone singles to right field.
- Kolby Branch pops up to shortstop.
- Ryan Black flies out to right field.
Bottom of the Third (Liberty at Bat)
- Riley DeCandido flies out to left field
- Jordan Jaffe grounds out to the pitcher.
- Jaxon Sorenson flies out to center field to retire the side. Georgia leads 4-2.
Top of the Fourth (UGA at Bat)
- Tre Phelps grounds out to shortstop.
- Daniel Jackson strikes out swinging on a full count.
- Rylan Lujo singles to left field.
- Brennan Hudson singles through the right side. Lujo advances to second.
- Kenny Ishikawa is walked on a full count. Hudson advances to second, Lujo advances to third.
- Ryan Wynn reaches first on a fielder’s choice. Ishikawa is tagged out at second to retire the side. Georgia leads 4-2.
Bottom of the Fourth (Liberty at Bat)
- Nick Barone grounds out to shortstop.
- Easton Swofford strikes out swinging.
- Landon Scilley grounds out to shortstop to retire the side. Georgia leads 4-2.
Top of the Fifth (UGA at Bat)
- Nick Arcamone strikes out swinging.
- Kolby Branch strikes out looking on a 1-2 count.
- Ryan Black singles to first base.
- Tre Phelps grounds out to third base to retire the side. Georgia leads 4-2.
Bottom of the Fifth (Liberty at Bat)
Top of the Sixth (UGA at Bat)
Bottom of the Sixth (Liberty at Bat)
Top of the Seventh (UGA at Bat)
Bottom of the Seventh (Liberty at Bat)
Top of the Eighth (UGA at Bat)
Bottom of the Eighth (Liberty at Bat)
Top of the Ninth (UGA at Bat)
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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Storm activity is expected to fire up around midday, starting inland from the Gulf sea breeze. From there, storms will track eastward at 20-25 mph, and that faster movement is actually good news for flooding concerns.
Some minor, temporary flooding is possible through tonight, especially in low-lying areas and spots that typically flood during heavy rain events.
The best chances for stronger storms and heavier rainfall will be north and near I-10 during the afternoon and evening hours.
The Weather Prediction Center has placed roughly the northern two-thirds of the area under a marginal risk of excessive rainfall.
What to expect through the night
Rain chances will stay elevated into the evening but should taper off after midnight. However, inland Northeast Florida could see a late round of showers or storms develop due to enhanced west coast sea breeze.
Gusty winds and frequent lightning can’t be ruled out. Always have your indoor plan ready to go for shelter access.
Cooler temperatures, patchy fog round out the forecast
High temperatures will run below average, topping out in the mid-to-upper 80s. Overnight lows will range from the upper 60s to near 70 degrees across inland Southeast Georgia, with mid-70s expected closer to the Atlantic coast.
Patchy fog is expected early this morning and again Sunday morning. Brief periods of dense fog are possible, so drivers should use caution on the roads during those early morning hours.
Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.
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