EF1 tornado in Covington County, Mississippi

The tornado began and tracked across rural northeast Jefferson Davis County, far northwest Covington County and then into southeast Simpson County. Snapped and uprooted large hardwood and softwood trees occurred along the path. The most intense damage occurred in the Saratoga Community in southeast Simpson County. A travel trailer was completely destroyed and two chicken houses were heavily damaged. Snapped pine trees fell on a church and damaged a roof and some shingle damage occurred on a few other homes. Skirting was blown off of a mobile home and a chicken house was damaged near the Simpson and Smith county line. Maximum winds were 100 mph. The track began three miles north of Clem and ended four miles north northeast of Mount Olive. Total path length across the 3 counties was around 9 miles.

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.