F3 Tornado — Lamar, Mississippi

2006-11-15 · near Sumrall, Lamar, Mississippi

Event narrative

This strong tornado touched down to the southwest of Sumrall and tracked east northeast across northern Lamar County and then into a small portion of extreme northwest Forrest County before dissipating. Approximately 25 homes were damaged, 16 of those suffering major damage or total destruction. The worst damage was along Old Salt Road, where a wood frame home on a concrete block foundation was totally destroyed, with the foundation cleared and the remnants of the home displaced dozens of yards away. A minivan was picked up and thrown/rolled a distance of approximately 150 yards, landing on top of a tractor and totally destroyed. Some large trees at this location were snapped at the base, denuded, and partially debarked. Heavy damage of F2 intensity was also observed along Foster Road, JD Hatten Road, and Rocky Branch road. Large swaths of trees were snapped and uprooted, and a few frame homes totally lost their roofs. Other damage along the path was weaker and generally of F1 intensity. The tornado then crossed Highway 42 and entered extreme northwest Forrest County. The total path length across Lamar and Forrest Counties was 13 miles.

Wider weather episode

An intense fall cyclone developed over the region and produced an episode of severe weather which included tornadoes. This strong weather system developed as a very strong jet stream, with winds between 160-200 mph, slammed into Oregon and Washington State. All that energy moved over the Rocky Mountains and caused a strong area of surface low pressure to develop. This low intensified as it moved east across the Red River Valley and then lifted across Arkansas and into Tennessee as it deepened to 990 mb! The strength of this deepening low caused warm and unstable air to lift northward across Louisiana and into central Mississippi. It was this northward moving warm front that became the focus of an area where tornadic supercell thunderstorms could thrive in an unstable and highly sheared environment.

This large and powerful storm system produced numerous tornadoes across the south and south eastern United States where many were of the strong (F2 or F3) variety. Within the Jackson, MS forecast area, there were a total of 5 tornadoes to impact the counties serviced. Two F3s, one in Lamar County and the other in Jones County. The Jones County tornado actually contained a satellite tornado, F1, which briefly rotated around the parent tornado. Next was an F1 tornado in southern Marion County which was actually the end of a strong tornado that moved out of Walthall County. Lastly, a brief F1 tornado occurred in central Lamar County. Tornadoes were not the only type of severe weather, scattered wind damage also occurred across northeast Louisiana and portions of central Mississippi between midnight and 10 am Wednesday November 15th 2006.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (31.3500, -89.6300)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 3647. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.