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EF1 tornado in Jasper County, Mississippi
Tornado May 3, 2009 · Jasper County, Mississippi
NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Covington County → Smith County → Smith County → Jasper County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.
The path drawn at its surveyed width of 350 yards (0.20 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.
What the National Weather Service wrote
This tornado began 4 miles east of Taylorsville, tracked northeast into western Jasper County, and ended 1.7 miles northwest of Stringer. Maximum winds were around at 100 mph, with a total path length around 5 miles. A chicken house was destroyed and another damaged. Roof damage occurred to a mobile home and a shed. Numerous pines were snapped and some oak trees were blown down.
The wider storm
Early on the 3rd, clusters of severe storms evolved into a line which produced scattered wind damage as it pushed east along and just north of I-20. An outflow boundary pushed out of this line and provided the focus for the second powerful and significant severe event.
Between 8 am and 1 pm, a Derecho evolved and raced east across the southern half of the forecast area at 60 to 70 mph. A Derecho is defined as a long lived windstorm, usually a large bow echo, which has a width of 40 to 250 miles and covers a long distance, typically one to three states. This large bowing squall line brought intense straight line winds and widespread damage across its swath. Some of the wind speeds within this Derecho ranged between 80 and 95 mph. There were numerous reports of trees down as well as downed power lines, which caused widespread power outages in many locations. Many structures were damaged by either fallen trees or just the wind itself. Scattered reports of hail and a few tornadoes also occurred. One fatality occurred in Jones County as a tree fell through a woman's mobile home.
During the early predawn hours of May 4th. Isolated severe storms affected northern Forest county with some flash flooding.
Began near Stringer (31.8750, -89.3110).
Other tornadoes from the same storm system
4 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 169304. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.
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