EF3 Tornado — Benton, Mississippi

2010-05-02 · near Ashland, Benton, Mississippi

Event narrative

A tornado touched down near Highway 5 approximately 2 miles south of Ashland. The tornado traveled northeast crossing into Tippah County. Eleven homes and mobile homes were destroyed with six receiving major damage. Twenty-three homes sustained minor damage. Numerous trees were snapped and debarked along the path. Power lines were also knocked down. A free standing transmission tower collapsed and was severely twisted as well. Two deaths and one critical injury occurred when a double wide mobile home was destroyed just east of Ashland. Four additional injuries, three of them critical, occurred when a mobile home was picked up by the tornado.

Wider weather episode

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.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (34.8008, -89.1893)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 237666. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.