EF3 tornado in Franklin County, Mississippi

An EF-3 tornado touched down in southern Franklin County near Middleton Creek Road and moved northeast. Broad and sporadic wind damage in the area suggests the tornado was still consolidating in this area. As the tornado crossed Berryton Road, it had reached EF-3 intensity and destroyed the O'Zion Baptist Church there. Most walls were collapsed, but two people took shelter in the bathroom and were unharmed. Documents from the church including bank statements and cancelled checks were found as far away as Brandon, MS to the northeast. Several homes in the area were also damaged including roof damage to a home, and an unanchored mobile home which was rolled once. Both residents of the mobile home were injured, but had sought safety in the bathroom of the home after receiving the Tornado Warning alert on their phones. The tornado continued northeast and damaged tree and power lines along its path. It crossed through the McCall Creek and Lucien areas at US Highway 84 where a modular home lost significant portions of its roof. The tornado collapsed an electrical transmission line tower just west of the Lincoln County line south of Hunsucker Lane. The tornado continued northeast across multiple roads through northwest Lincoln County and damaged trees, power lines, and homes. It dissipated just north of Pleasant Ridge Road. The maximum wind speed was 140 mph.

On December 28th, an outbreak of severe weather took place. Initially, a few isolated supercells storms developed and produced some tornadoes. As this occurred, a line of storms also developed and eventually pushed eastward across our region. Widespread damaging winds occurred with the line along with numerous tornadoes. This particular convective system was extremely efficient at producing tornadoes. This resulted in a record number of tornadoes for the month of December. The total across our forecast area was 43. The previous December record was 24 back in 2022.