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EF1 tornado in Smith County, Mississippi

Tornado December 28, 2024 · Smith County, Mississippi

EF1
Rating
13.0 mi
Path length
700 yd
Path width
$200K
Damage as recorded
$50K
Crop damage
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 700 yards (0.40 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

An EF-1 tornado began southwest of Burns where it downed pine trees and moved east-northeast. The tornado crossed MS Highway 35 and carried northeastward through portions of the Leaf River bottom before it impacted areas north of Pineville. Trees were downed along County Road 504 with portions of a chicken house damaged with tin panels strewn along County Road 501-4. The tornado then moved northeast along Tally Road where a shed was largely destroyed and large branches were downed. The tornado dissipated along Harris Road with minor vegetative debris noted.

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 Burns (32.1036, -89.5740).

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 1252546. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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