EF0 tornado in Bolivar County, Mississippi

The tornado began along Bishop Rd where it downed tree limbs at a funeral home and continued across West Sunflower Rd. Several sections of tin were blown off the end of a strip mall at the No Way Jose restaurant and a tree was downed along MS Highway 8. Along Bolling Ave, a fence and a shed were blown down and trees and tree limbs were downed. The tornado lifted as it reached a Delta State University intercollegiate athletic facility, where minor fence damage occurred. The maximum estimated wind speed was 85 mph.

As high pressure over the East Coast refused to move, a storm system approached the ArkLaMiss from the west and stalled just to the west of the region on March 7th. While warm moist air from the Gulf of Mexico filtered north and encompassed the region, a series of potent upper level disturbances began lifting northeast across the Lower Mississippi River Valley. This set the stage for multiple rounds of torrential rains that fell almost continuously across the ArkLaMiss from March 8th through March 12th. These prolonged torrential rains resulted in widespread flash flooding and river flooding across the region, with numerous area rivers reaching moderate and major flood stages. Floodwaters damaged numerous homes, businesses, and closed many primary and secondary roads across the region, with some secondary roads washed out.

In addition, one weak tornado developed on March 10th as a line of storms began to finally push to the east over central Mississippi. This weak EF-0 tornado touched down just west of Raleigh, snapping a few trees and causing minor damage to a metal roof of an outbuilding.

As the storm system finally exited the region late on the 12th, another fast moving, compact storm system followed in its wake during the evening of March 13th. This system brought another round of heavy rain to the Delta region, in addition to hail and damaging straight line winds. Two tornadoes were spawned by this system as well, including an EF-0 tornado that touched down near Cleveland in Bolivar County.