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EF0 tornado in Simpson County, Mississippi

Tornado December 9, 2023 · Simpson County, Mississippi

EF0
Rating
13.9 mi
Whole path
350 yd
Path width
$30K
Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Simpson County → Rankin County → Simpson County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 350 yards (0.20 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF0 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF0 is light damage: shingles and siding peeled, gutters torn, branches broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 65–85 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

An EF-0 tornado produced intermittent damage to trees and vegetation along a path extending from just north of Braxton to south of Puckett. The tornado tracked along the Rankin and Simpson county line. It briefly crossed into far southern Rankin County near Charlie Dixon Road, turned east-southeast, and crossed back into Simpson County near Cato Road where a tree was blown. A cedar tree south of Puckett was blown down onto power lines as the tornado dissipated near MS Highway 541. Maximum winds were estimated to be 80 mph, with a total path length of 14 miles across the two counties.

The wider storm

As a low pressure system moved through the Upper Midwest region, its cold front which stretched to the south through the Lower Mississippi River Valley became the focus for thunderstorm development on the afternoon of December 9th. Initially discrete supercell storms produced wind damage and hail as they moved into northern Mississippi, and these supercells eventually grew upscale into a squall line of nearly continuous storms as the cold front pushed farther southeast into Mississippi. A few severe storms developed in advance of the cold front during the afternoon and early evening and also produced wind damage and hail.

Began near Braxton (32.0455, -89.9858).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

2 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1154315. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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