F3 Tornado — Smith, Mississippi

2005-04-06 · near Mize, Smith, Mississippi

Wider weather episode

This strong tornado developed from a long lived supercell thunderstorm, which had a history of producing tornadoes, that moved across a large portion of Southern and Central Mississippi. The tornado touched down just N of Mount Olive, in Covington county, and stayed on the ground for 28 miles across most of Smith county, where it dissipated around the Ted community just inside Jasper county. Where the tornado first touched down it was weak, F0, and only downed a few trees. As it moved NE, into Smith county, it quickly gained strength. F1 to F2 type damaged occurred across SW Smith county where hundreds of trees were snapped or uprooted and several homes and outbuildings had part or all of their roofs blown off. As the strong tornado approached Mize, MS, it became stronger and reached it maximum intensity, F3. Here the tornado was 600 yards wide and was significantly damaging nearly all the trees in its path. One mile to the SW of Mize, a mobile home was destroyed. The most significant damage occurred in Mize where the Attendance Center was nearly demolished. The top floor of the Attendance Center was almost completely taken off, 3 portable classrooms were destroyed along with several large light poles bent or snapped. The tornado continued to the NE toward the Center Ridge community. The damage between Mize and Center Ridge, a distance of nearly 9 miles, ranged between F2 and F3. Along Providence Road, a barn was destroyed, 2 homes were significantly damaged and a church was heavily damaged. The tornado crossed State Highway 37 and continued toward the Center Ridge community. Here, many more trees were uprooted along with several structures demolished or sustaining significant damage. As the tornado tracked toward Sylvarena, it began to weaken and become smaller. From this point, to where it dissipated in Jasper county, damage was confined to trees snapped and uprooted. This tornado affected 3 counties and had a total path length of 28 miles.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (31.7833, -89.6500)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 5447086. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.