EF1 Tornado — Calhoun, Mississippi

2025-03-15 · near Derma, Calhoun, Mississippi

Event narrative

The tornado touched down between CR 422 and CR 424 west of Vardaman and rapidly intensified, ripping up a stand of pine trees. The tornado then intermittently touched down as it moved east-northeast toward Vardaman. The tornado uprooted numerous hardwood trees along CR 426 and caused minor roof damage to a home. The tornado moved nearly parallel along Highway 8 causing minor tree and outbuilding damage just west of Vardaman. The tornado then tracked through the town of Vardaman uprooting trees and causing minor roof damage to a few homes. The metal roof was ripped off a building at the elementary school. The tornado then moved out of town and continued to uproot and snap a few trees along Highway 8 and CR 446. The tornado then crossed CR 451 and moved into Chickasaw County. Peak winds were estimated at 105 mph in Calhoun County.

Wider weather episode

An upper low over the Central Plains moved into the Upper Mississippi Valley during the evening hours of Friday, March 14, 2025. Increasing moisture advection ahead of an approaching cold front lifted dewpoints into the low to mid 60s. This coupled with increasing height falls and a mid-level 80 knot jet rotating around the main upper low supported severe thunderstorm development. Large looping hodographs, MLCAPE values over 2000 J/kg, 60 knots of bulk shear, and 0-1 km SRH values between 250 and 350 m2/s2 supported an all hazards threat. Storm mode during the overnight hours was supercellular with large hail, damaging winds and several tornadoes, a few of which were strong (EF2+), mainly across northeast Arkansas, the Missouri Bootheel and northeast Mississippi.

The main upper low lifted into the western Great Lakes Region by early Saturday morning, March 15, 2025. The cold front stalled just to the west of the Mississippi River. Simultaneously, a neutrally-tilted longwave trough moved across the Southern Plains and pushed a 100 knot mid-level jet into the region. This placed West Tennessee and north Mississippi beneath the left exit region of the jet with widespread lift and diffluence available. As a result, showers and thunderstorms rapidly redeveloped across north Mississippi and parts of West Tennessee Saturday morning. Storms quickly formed into a line that slowly moved east. The line of storms produced damaging winds, large hail and a weak tornado Saturday morning. The airmass ahead of the line became even more favorable for severe storms by Saturday afternoon with MLCAPE values increasing to 1500 J/kg and 0-1km SRH values reaching 300 m2/s2 as a surface low moving along the cold front and backed surface winds across northeast Mississippi. Discrete supercells formed ahead of the line during the afternoon producing a couple of weak tornadoes and damaging winds over parts of northeast Missisisppi. Flash flooding was also common due to the slow moving nature of the system.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (33.8505, -89.2494)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1249619. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.