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By Thomas Westerholm
Life & Trends Reporter
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A Florida woman filmed what happened to her car during a rare freeze, as the southern state goes through one of its most extreme bouts with cold in decades.
Micayla, a 23-year-old Floridian posting on TikTok as @micaylamalchiodii, shared a video that drew more than 70,000 views in which she showed her car, which was completely frozen over.
"We in Tampa, FL," she wrote in the overlaid text. "What is this?"
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Micayla gently scratched a heart into the frost on her car with her key and then wrote "Tampa" gently on top.
In a follow-up comment, she noted that she's from Connecticut, so "I've seen snow, but I was shocked because I'm in Tampa."
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Florida is bracing for one of its most severe cold spells in more than a decade as an arctic front descends across the Southeast, delivering wind chills in the single digits and threatening agricultural losses.
According to The Weather Channel, temperatures could drop into the mid-20s as far south as Vero Beach, while Miami may experience lows in the mid-30s—conditions not seen since 2010.
The National Weather Service has issued freeze warnings across the state, with potential wind chill values as low as 8 degrees Fahrenheit in Jacksonville and 9 degrees in Tallahassee.
A 'Bomb Cyclone'
Meteorologists say the cold front is being driven by a “bomb cyclone” intensifying along the Southeast coast, which will pull arctic air southward as it moves out to sea.
Angie Enyedi of the National Weather Service in Jacksonville told Newsweek that temperatures could be “20 to 25 degrees below average” and that subfreezing conditions may persist for up to three nights.
“Late this week, a storm is expected to strengthen along a stalled front near the Gulf Coast,” Paul Pastelok of AccuWeather said in an email to Newsweek, cautioning that how quickly the storm intensifies will determine whether it tracks up the East Coast or remains confined to the Southeast.
'Gonna be insane'
Many commenters on Micayla's video questioned her method for scraping the frost.
"Keying your own car for the ice scraping is wild though," one posted, while another user commented on Florida's recent weather: "If it snows Saturday, it’s gonna be insane."
Finally, one commenter had a reminder: "Please remember to check for our stray furry friends before starting your cars at the moment!
"When it gets cold, they like hiding by your engines, especially here where they're not used to cold at all... Easy way to check, though, just give a quick knock on your hood and listen for noises inside!"
Newsweek has reached out to Micayla for comment via TikTok. We could not verify the details of the case.
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