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Storms bring hail, clip power
By JAMES THORNER, Times Staff Writer
LAND O'LAKES -- Tree-limb-cracking, hail-stone-spewing thunderstorms passed through Pasco County on Thursday afternoon, prompting an unconfirmed report that a funnel cloud had drifted over Land O'Lakes. The storm knocked out power to about 1,375 homes in Wesley Chapel about 1:30 p.m., when winds knocked down an old cypress tree on Bainwood Lane east of Boyette Road. Withlacoochee River Electric Cooperative restored power about 2 p.m., company spokesman Ernie Holzhauer said. The same tree dented the roof of an unoccupied parked car and smashed its rear window. A second wave of nasty weather clipped a Progress Energy line in Land O'Lakes about 4:40 p.m., leaving an additional 1,800 homes temporarily in the dark. Yet another outage, at 5 p.m., darkened 60 units at the Lake Padgett Mobile Home Park on U.S. 41. Based on a phone call from Land O'Lakes, the National Weather Service in Ruskin publicized a possible tornado 19 miles southwest of Dade City at about 3:07 p.m. By 3:30 p.m. the tornado warning had passed with no reports of damage. "They had some real bad thunderstorms that rolled through there," weather service spokesman Tom Dougherty said. "I don't believe there were any tornadoes on the ground or anything like that." Shortly before 5 p.m., inky black clouds producing large hail raced across the Wesley Chapel and San Antonio areas, bringing downpours to Dade City. Dime-sized hail also was reported near Port Richey and Hudson. Dougherty described the storms, created by what he called an upper-level disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico, as "run of the mill stuff." "It's just another day in Florida," he said. -- Staff writer Bridget Hall Grumet contributed to this report.
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