EF2 Tornado — Attala, Mississippi

2010-04-24 · near Boyette, Attala, Mississippi

Event narrative

The tornado then moved into western Attala County from just east of Durant in Holmes County. The tornado re-intensified somewhat and began causing significant tree damage in rural western Attala County. The tornado continued across Attala County, causing tree and power line damage,and heavily damaging a number of rural residences, including in the community of Hesterville. The tornado continued to the northeast and crossed the Natchez Trace Parkway. Here numerous trees were damaged and thrown across the Parkway. The maximum intensity in Attala County was EF2 with maximum winds around 130 mph.

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/parishes 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.

As we try and put this tornado into perspective for the state of Mississippi, 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, making it the most deadly since November 21st 1992. Lastly, this was the first violent tornado (F4 or greater) in the month of April since April 18th, 1978.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (33.0802, -89.8241)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 224553. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.