TornadoLookup

Home / Mississippi / Tippah

EF3 tornado in Tippah County, Mississippi

Tornado May 2, 2010 · Tippah County, Mississippi

EF3
Rating
29.6 mi
Whole path
880 yd
Path width
3
Deaths
9
Injuries
$1.8M
Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Benton County → Tippah County → Hardeman County, Tennessee → McNairy County, Tennessee; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 880 yards (0.50 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF3 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF3 is severe damage: whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, consistent with estimated gusts of 136–165 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 tracked northeast into Tippah County from Benton County. The tornado continued northeast crossing into Hardeman County, Tennessee. Numerous homes were damaged along County Road 301 near the intersection of County Road 303, along Highway 72 east of Walnut and near Brownfield. In total 5 homes were destroyed. Trees and power lines were knocked down in the area as well.

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 Tiplersville (34.9088, -89.0181).

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 237677. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

Tornadoes near your address

See every tornado that passed near a place you know, measured to its path.