EF1 Tornado — Adams, Mississippi

2008-12-09 · near Natchez, Adams, Mississippi

Event narrative

The tornado track started just south of the city limits of Natchez, tracked northeast across the southeast side of the city, and then moved into unincorporated areas east of the city. Numerous hardwood and softwood trees were snapped and uprooted along the path. Around 50 homes were damaged, mostly from trees falling on them. Six commercial buildings were damaged, mainly roof damage. One power pole was snapped and power lines were down in several locations along the path. Maximum winds were around 110 mph.

Wider weather episode

A round of severe thunderstorms containing tornadoes, large hail and damaging winds, occurred Tuesday December 9th into Tuesday night across much of the Lower Mississippi River Valley. These storms developed along and ahead of a strong surface cold front and strong upper level disturbance. A surface low developed to our west and tracked eastward increasing the winds and drawing northward deep moisture and instability. The cold front steadily pushed east and clashed with the unstable and highly sheared environment and produced numerous severe thunderstorms as a squall line developed and tracked eastward across the region.

This event produced 16 tornadoes along with many reports of large hail, and wind damage. The majority of the severe weather occurred across central and southern Mississippi. Of the 16 tornadoes, 2 were rated EF2, 8 rated EF1, and 6 rated EF0.

Historically, these 16 tornadoes rank 2nd all time for the number of tornadoes in the month of December. The record is 19 which occurred during the December of 1988. Additionally, this December 9th event has pushed the yearly total of tornadoes in Mississippi to 109. This will set a new record for the number of tornadoes in a year for the state of Mississippi. The previous record of 99 was set in 2005.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (31.5403, -91.4017)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 141344. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.