EF3 Tornado — Madison, Louisiana

2010-04-24 · near Quebec, Madison, Louisiana

Event narrative

The start of the long-track violent tornado began around 6 miles west of Tallulah, just to the south of I-20. This tornado did not waste any time becoming strong and quite wide as it downed a few high tension truss towers on the south end of I-20. As the tornado crossed the interstate, a tractor-trailer was flipped over and thrown opposite of the initial traveling direction. The driver of the truck was injured as this occurred. The tornado then traveled quickly northeast and crossed Highway 80 and Willow Bayou Road, just to the northwest of Tallulah. Here, several homes were heavily damaged along with several vehicles and tractors damaged.

The tornado continued to the northeast and crossed Highway 65 and then tracked across the Mississippi River and into far northwest Warren County at Eagle Lake. This tornado destroyed a chemical plant near Highway 65 and the Mississippi River levee, in the community of Omega. A few rail cars were rolled off the track at this location and a large crane was flipped over and destroyed. Several storage tanks were severely damaged as well at this location.

The tornado produced mainly EF3 and EF2 damage across Madison Parish with maximum winds around 155 mph. Timber and power line damage along the path was substantial with dozens of power lines taken down along with thousands of trees snapped and uprooted.

Wider weather episode

During the midday hours of April 24th, an intense supercell thunderstorm produced a violent, long track tornado, which ripped a path across the center of the NWS Jackson, MS forecast area. This tornado touched down just south of I-20, west of Tallulah, in Madison Parish. The tornado intensified quickly and became large as it tracked at a fast pace to the northeast. The tornado moved at roughly 55 mph and was on the ground for 149 miles. The actual time on the ground was 2 hours and 44 minutes. The tornado touched 9 counties along it's path with the most significant damage occurring in Madison Parish, Warren, Yazoo, Holmes, Attala and Choctaw Counties. A great deal of the damage was in the EF2 and EF3 range with a couple locations of EF4 damage in Yazoo and Holmes Counties. Maximum winds peaked around 170 mph. Overall, 10 fatalities occurred along with 146 injuries. Five fatalities occurred in Choctaw County, 4 in Yazoo County and 1 in Holmes County.

This long track tornado ranks as the 4th longest in Mississippi history at 149 miles. It is the widest known tornado with a maximum width of 1.75 miles. It also ranks as the 9th deadliest tornado with 10 fatalities.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (32.4032, -91.2993)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 222803. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.