Hail — Benton, Mississippi

2023-12-09 · near Ashland, Benton, Mississippi

Wider weather episode

A strong storm system swept across the Mid-South on December 9, 2023, driven by a deep longwave trough and closed upper-level low-pressure system. In the early morning hours, a cold front slowly began moving east across Arkansas and Tennessee. Ahead of this boundary, warm and moist air from the Gulf of Mexico was efficiently transported to the Mid-South as surface dew points climbed into the low and mid-60s by 9 am. By mid-morning, a line of sub-severe storms formed in northeast Arkansas. As this line pushed east of the Mississippi River, storms encountered an environment favorable for severe weather. A strong supercell went on to produce large hail and an EF-1 tornado in Gibson and Weakley counties in Tennessee. New supercells formed in southeast Arkansas by late morning and immediately began producing large hail as they moved east into northern Mississippi. Hailstones of golf ball size and larger were the main attributes of these supercells. Most notable were several baseball size (2.75 inch) reports across portions of northwest Mississippi and a softball size hailstone (4.0 inch) report near Byhalia, MS. Baseball size hail is not uncommon in the Mid-South, but it tends to occur mainly in the springtime. This hail event entered the record books as the largest outbreak of significant hail (2.0 inches or greater) in December history across the Mid-South.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (34.8300, -89.1700)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1146198. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.