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EF3 tornado in Lafayette County, Mississippi

Tornado April 27, 2011 · Lafayette County, Mississippi

EF3
Rating
13.6 mi
Path length
440 yd
Path width
8
Injuries
$1.5M
Damage as recorded
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 440 yards (0.25 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 touched down along County Road 378, east-southeast of Springdale, and moved northeast. The most concentrated area of damage was in the Pine Flat community. A number of homes and mobile homes were damaged or destroyed. Numerous trees and power lines were knocked down as well. Damage occurred on County Roads 415, 369, and 469. The tornado lifted just north of Highway 278 along County Road 213. Eight injuries occurred from the tornado.

The wider storm

A stationary front remained draped across Southern Missouri into Western Kentucky from April 24th, 2011 into April 25th, 2011. A very warm and unstable atmosphere was in place across the Mid-South ahead of the front. A low pressure system developed along the front and interacted with the unstable environment which helped produce several rounds of severe storms into the evening of April 26th, 2011. As a result of the severe storms, the front sank south during the early morning hours of April 27th, 2011 as a secondary low pressure system developed along the front. As a result, another round of severe storms fired during the afternoon hours ahead of the low pressure center. Additional severe storms fired along the trailing cold front. Tornadoes, large hail, damaging winds, flash flooding occurred as a result of the severe storms.

Began near Springdale (34.2084, -89.5653).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 303011. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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