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EF1 tornado in Smith County, Mississippi

Tornado December 28, 2024 · Smith County, Mississippi

EF1
Rating
3.4 mi
Path length
200 yd
Path width
$30K
Damage as recorded
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 200 yards (0.11 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF1 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF1 is moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 86–110 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

This tornado began over far southwestern Smith County where it snapped and uprooted numerous trees along its path as it crossed CR 51, MS Highway 35, and CR 47. Large portions of a roof were removed from two chicken houses along CR 45 with additional trees downed before the tornado lifted near CR 20. The maximum wind speed was 100 mph.

The wider storm

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.

Began near Mize (31.7929, -89.6277).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1226725. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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