EF1 tornado in Franklin County, Mississippi

The tornado started out in a forested area west of Hamburg. The timber damage in this area became quite intense, with swaths of pine trees snapped and leveled. As the tornado crossed Highway 33, it moved through a small community of homes, causing roof damage to a frame home and several mobile homes. Additionally, several outbuildings were destroyed, and windows were blown out of vehicles. The rest of the tornados path was across rural forested areas of southern Jefferson County, and damage was mainly limited to tree damage. However, one home did suffer some minor roof damage and some farm outbuildings sustained some roof damage. Maximum winds were around 105 mph. Total path length across northwest Franklin and southern Jefferson Counties was 11 miles.

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.