EF3 Tornado — Kemper, Mississippi
2011-04-15 · near Cleveland, Kemper, Mississippi
Event narrative
The tornado started just west of County Road 450, downing some pine trees. As it crossed County Road 450, it began downing numerous trees, pushed a mobile home over, and damaged the roof of a house. The tornado intensified as it cross MS Highway 491, destroying a large portion of two chicken houses down to the ground, and causing extensive tree damage. The tornado then appeared to weaken slightly as it crossed County Road 729 and then crossed into Kemper County near White Store Road. Numerous trees were snapped, and a home suffered some minor to moderate damage along County Road 729.
The tornado intensified as it approached Little Rock Road and MS Highway 495. The tornado reached an EF-3 intensity at this location, causing extensive structural damage to two frame homes, completely destroying two mobile homes and carrying the remains some distance, snapping several power poles, and causing intense tree damage with some denuded trees. The tornado weakened a bit from here, but continued to cause extensive tree damage and downed power poles and lines as it moved east-northeast. As the tornado crossed Highway 16 for the first time west of De Kalb, it continued to cause EF-2 type damage, destroying several mobile homes, heavily damaging the second story of a frame home, and causing roof damage to other frame homes. Extensive tree and power line damage also occurred in this area.
As the tornado crossed Neely Town Road north of DeKalb it again caused EF-3 type damage, completely destroying a double-wide mobile home and wrapping the frame around trees several hundred yards away and carrying the remnants across a road a considerable distance away, along with intense tree damage including denuded trees, and snapped power poles. It also destroyed another mobile home and caused roof damage to nearby frame homes. It continued east, causing extensive tree damage across MS Highway 39, and then caused EF-3 damage again as it crossed Old DeKalb-Scooba Road. Tree damage was the most impressive of anywhere along the track in this area, with large swaths of area where nearly every tree was snapped and many trees were denuded. Additionally, a frame home suffered heavy damage with the roof mainly gone and some walls heavily damaged, another home had heavy roof damage, and some outbuildings were destroyed. This was also where the tornado reached its maximum width of three-quarters of a mile.
The tornado then weakened somewhat and narrowed as it crossed MS Highway 16 west of Scooba. Numerous trees and a couple of power poles were snapped in this area. The tornado then crossed US Highway 45 south of Scooba where it was relatively narrow but intense with damage on the border of EF-2/EF-3. A large warehouse building was totally destroyed, a pickup truck was moved a considerable distance, intense tree damage occurred with some denuding, and three homes suffered roof damage.
After crossing US Highway 45, the tornado widened again, and caused heavy damage in the area east of Scooba, particularly along MS Highway 16 near Giles Road. The tornado caused heavy roof damage to several homes and intense tree damage, with some denuding of trees occurring again. A number of power poles were snapped in the area as well. The tornado crossed into Alabama along and north of MS Highway 16. Additionally, this tornado caused extensive timber damage across Kemper County. Roughly 3200 acres of pines and hardwood trees were damaged. Maximum winds were around 140 mph. Path length in Mississippi was 38 miles. Total path length for both MS/AL was 48.5 miles.
Wider weather episode
A significant severe weather event and tornado outbreak affected portions of central Mississippi, southeastern Arkansas, and northeastern Louisiana on April 15th. This event evolved slowly and brought multiple rounds of severe storms to the region between 3 am and 9 pm. A total of 15 tornadoes occurred during this event with 3 being of the strong variety (EF2 or EF3). In addition, numerous reports of damaging straight-line winds occurred as well as instances of large hail. Some of the strongest storms produced hail from golf ball to baseball size. There were two reports of softball sized hail as well, one in Clarke County and the other in Kemper County. In addition to the severe storms, significant flash flooding occurred over northern portions of central Mississippi.
View location on OpenStreetMap → (32.7145, -88.9153)
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 302507. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.