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EF3 tornado in Greene County, Mississippi

Tornado April 15, 2011 · Greene County, Mississippi

EF3
Rating
18.3 mi
Whole path
500 yd
Path width
4
Deaths
28
Injuries
$13.1M
Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Greene County → Washington County, Alabama; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 500 yards (0.28 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

The National Weather Service aerial survey revealed a continuous long track tornado from just west of Leakesville, Mississippi to Deer Park, Alabama. The tornado touched down west of Leakesville south of Highway 57. It crossed the highway, strengthened to EF-3 intensity, and then turned east toward the city of Leakesville paralleling Highway 57. The tornado damaged 98 homes: 47 with minor damage, 28 with major damage, and 23 homes completely destroyed. 14 businesses were completely destroyed. One fatality occurred in a destroyed mobile home. In Mississippi, the tornado did an estimated 11.1 million dollars worth of property damage to homes and businesses. The tornado continued east northeast into extreme southwest Washington County, Alabama.

The wider storm

Numerous supercell thunderstorms developed in the late morning through the evening hours across Mississippi and Alabama. A series of long track tornadic supercell thunderstorms impacted southeast Mississippi in the late morning through the afternoon hours...with another round of severe storms developing in the evening hours preceding a strong cold front.

Began near Leakesville (31.1311, -88.6325).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

2 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 296776. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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