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F2 tornado in Kemper County, Mississippi

Tornado January 5, 2007 · Kemper County, Mississippi

F2
Rating
2.2 mi
Path length
250 yd
Path width
9
Injuries
$600K
Damage as recorded
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 250 yards (0.14 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What F2 means. This tornado was rated on Fujita’s original scale, used until 2007. F2 meant considerable damage: roofs torn off well-built houses, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted; the scale paired it with winds of 113–157 mph, figures later judged too high, especially toward the top of the scale, and revised downward in the Enhanced Fujita scale. Ratings then, as now, came from the damage.

What the National Weather Service wrote

This strong tornado touched down in the Blackwater Community and caused extensive damage along its 2 mile path. Six homes were destroyed, five of which were mobile homes and one modular home. Nine people were injured with three serious. One car was flipped over and rolled along with extensive damage to trees and power lines along the path of this high end F2 tornado.

The wider storm

During the evening of Jan 4th and early morning hours of Jan 5th, a potent storm system moved across the Lower Mississippi Valley. This system was dynamic enough to generate a line of thunderstorms across Central Mississippi. This line developed within a strongly sheared environment and evolved into a squall line with bowing segments. These bowing segments proved very efficient with respect to producing damaging wind gusts and six tornadoes. The squall line matured just east of Interstate 55 around 11 pm and raced east before exiting into Alabama around 3 am.

Began near Blackwater (32.6145, -88.6959).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 7384. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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