EF1 tornado in Covington County, Mississippi

Tornado February 12, 2008 · Covington County, Mississippi

EF1

Rating

1.5 mi

Path length

100 yd

Path width

$200K

Damage as recorded

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 100 yards (0.06 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF1 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF1 is moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 86–110 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

This brief tornado touched down just southeast of Mt. Olive and tracked for about a mile to the northeast. Multiple large pine trees were snapped or uprooted and the roof of a few chicken houses were peeled off. Maximum winds were around 105 mph.

The wider storm

A potent storm system dropped out of the Southern Plains on February 12th and pushed a squall line of thunderstorms through the region. This squall line produced widespread wind damage across portions of northeast Louisiana as well as central and southern Mississippi. The line of storms was very efficient in terms of producing severe wind gusts, many of which were between 75 and 90 mph. Thousands of trees were damaged with many falling on homes and taking down power lines. Five brief tornadoes also occurred with this line of storms.

Began near Arbo (31.7196, -89.6024).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

EF1 Rankin County EF1 Rankin County EF1 Jasper County EF0 Smith County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 84775. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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