EF1 Tornado — Jasper, Mississippi

2009-03-26 · near Montrose, Jasper, Mississippi

Event narrative

This tornado started just off of County Road 20, on private property, about 1 mile ESE of Montrose. Several trees were uprooted/snapped at this location and again just to the east along County Road 206. The tornado moved across several miles of wooded bottom land before crossing County Road 2414. Substantial damage occurred along County Road 2414, 4 homes were heavily damaged. The worst was where a home on pillars was pushed off its blocks. One quarter of the roof was heavily damaged. Numerous trees were snapped and uprooted with 2 large trees down through a mobile home. An ATV was rolled down a hill over 100 yards. The tornado then crossed Highway 503 and destroyed an old church building. The weakly fastened roof was blown off and then the walls collapsed inward. Numerous trees and several power lines snapped. Path width was around 500 yds at this point. The tornado continued to the ENE through northern Jasper County. Another home was pushed off its pillars and peeled all the tin off the roof, this occurred on County Road 24. The tornado then crossed County Road 2422 and downed many more trees, tore part of the roof off one home and damaged an old shed. Another old structure had some of the tin roof peeled off. The tornado crossed into Newton County at 2:52 am. It then crossed Griffis Fountain Road. The tornado crossed Parks Mill Road and dissipated just to the east of that point. Many trees were damaged along Parks Mill Road. The total path length across both counties was 19 miles. Maximum winds were around 110 mph.

Wider weather episode

A round of severe thunderstorms, containing tornadoes and damaging straight line winds, occurred Wednesday night, March 25, into early Thursday morning, March 26. These storms developed as a strong upper level disturbance encountered an unstable environment over the lower Mississippi Valley. A squall line of showers and thunderstorms pushed rapidly eastward across the area. One supercell storm formed ahead of the main line and produced a strong tornado which hit the town of Magee.

Eight tornadoes were confirmed from this event. Of the 8 tornadoes, 1 was rated EF3, 1 was rated EF2, 4 were rated EF1, and 2 were rated EF0. Numerous other locations experienced damaging straight line winds in excess of 60-70 mph. The worst damage occurred from a tornado which laid a 17.5 mile long track across Simpson and Smith counties. This storm was rated as EF3 with estimated 150 mph maximum winds near Magee. A second strong tornado, rated EF2 with 125 mph winds, effected Jones County near Soso.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (32.1200, -89.2200)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 155972. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.