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EF1 tornado in Tippah County, Mississippi

Tornado May 1, 2010 · Tippah County, Mississippi

EF1
Rating
10.3 mi
Whole path
300 yd
Path width
$135K
Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Union County → Tippah County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 300 yards (0.17 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF1 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF1 is moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 86–110 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

A tornado moved northeast into Tippah County from Union County. The tornado remained on the ground for roughly 8 miles in Tippah County lifting near County Road 602 northeast of Dumas. Six homes sustained minor to moderate damage. The hardest hit area was located on County Road 701. In addition, a roof was peeled off of a mobile home. A barn was also damaged. A few vehicles were damaged as well. Many trees were knocked down along the path. A church suffered minor damage just before the tornado lifted.

The wider storm

An upper level disturbance slowly approached the Mid-South during the evening of April 30th, 2010 as a cold front became stationary to the west. This pattern remained in place through the evening hours of May 2nd, 2010. South to southwest winds pumped warm moist air from the Gulf of Mexico and created a very unstable atmosphere. Showers and thunderstorms developed in association with the front during the early evening hours and moved east into Eastern Arkansas shortly before midnight. Additional thunderstorms occurred in association with the upper level disturbance. Due to the unstable atmosphere, thunderstorms quickly became severe producing large hail, damaging winds, and flash flooding. The severe weather evolved into an outbreak by May 1st and 2nd. Historic rainfall and flash flooding in addition to large hail and damaging winds occurred during the early morning hours of May 1st with several tornadoes occurring during the afternoon hours of May 1st to early morning hours of May 2nd.

Began near Bluff (34.5975, -88.9637).

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 229846. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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