EF3 Tornado — Holmes, Mississippi

2008-01-10 · near Pickens, Holmes, Mississippi

Event narrative

The tornado started with a narrow path of scattered downed trees near Shady Lane Road. The damage intensified as it approached Highway 17. Here tree damage became much more intense with hundreds of trees snapped and uprooted. One home had a portion of its roof ripped off. The tornado intensified and reached its maximum intensity and width between Highway 17 and U.S. Highway 51. Hundreds of trees were snapped and uprooted, some of them hardwoods that were snapped off except for a few large limbs and partially debarked. Several mobile homes were obliterated and two homes of wood frame and concrete block construction had nearly all of the outer walls collapsed along with total roof removal. Large missiles were generated, including a pickup truck that was thrown nearly 150 yards. On the east side of U.S. Highway 51, three high tension steel power poles were snapped off near the base. As the tornado continued east-northeast and moved into Attala County, the path narrowed and damage became limited to tree damage before dissipation just inside the Attala County line. The total path length across both Holmes and Attala Counties was 10 miles with a EF3 Enhanced Fujita Scale rating. Maximum winds were around 140 mph.

Wider weather episode

The second week of January 2008 was quite active with respect to severe weather. Two events impacted the region in a span of 3 days which produced several tornadoes, large hail and wind damage across the area.

On January 10th a vigorous storm system developed over the southern portions of the Midwest and moved northeast towards the Ohio valley. A strong cold front swept across the area during the late morning into the afternoon hours and strong to severe thunderstorms developed out ahead of it. All of the ingredients for tornadic development came into place as warm Gulf moisture pushed northward into the area out ahead of the front. The thunderstorms developed in eastern Louisiana and quickly moved across central Mississippi during the late morning and afternoon hours. As the storms progressed eastward, good instability combined with very strong wind shear for supercell development east of the Mississippi River, with the storms reaching maximum intensity along and east of the interstate 55 corridor.

By far, the most damage was produced by a single supercell thunderstorm that moved from north of Vicksburg through north central and northeast Mississippi during the late morning and early afternoon hours. This single storm produced three strong tornadoes, all of which were rated as EF3 on the Enhanced Fujita tornado damage scale. The most significant damage occurred in Caledonia in Lowndes County, where a school gymnasium was destroyed along with a number of school buses and vehicles in the area.

A second supercell that organized near the Mississippi River in southwest Mississippi before midday tracked from Claiborne County, through the northern Jackson Metropolitan Area, and finally into Noxubee county in northeast Mississippi by mid afternoon. This storm was responsible for 5 different tornado touchdowns along its path, as well as many reports of high winds and hail.

The rest of the area saw a broken line of storms and other supercells ahead of the line. A mix of damaging winds and hail were reported through the rest of the afternoon before the system exited the area.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (32.8954, -89.9979)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 72839. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.