EF2 tornado in Marion County, Mississippi

This multi-vortex tornado began south of US Highway 98 near Mays Creek off Shiloh Firetower Road as a few tree limbs were snapped. It then moved east-northeast across New Hope Church Road as it was snapping and uprooting a few softwood trees. Thereafter, it pushed northeast to MS Highway 35 continuing to snap a few softwood trees with a more concentrated area of snapped and uprooted softwood/hardwood trees noted across the southern portions of Foxworth along Triangle Street. It gained in strength when it moved across US Highway 98, to southwest Columbia as it impacted Bill's Collision causing damage to the main storefront by way of portions of roof loss, the body shop area having its roof removed, shattering windows, in addition to tossing a car completely over the storefront thus promoting significant damage. Other vehicles were moved or flipped on the lot as well along with sustaining damage. The tornado moved northeast across the eastern side of Columbia with roof damage to the library. Other damage was on the low end with some tree damage at Pearl Street, Church Street and Beauvoir Street before finally lifting. Maximum winds were 112 mph.

A well defined, positively-tilted trough existed across the Southern Plains and at the surface, a cold front was progressing across Arkansas and Louisiana, while an intensifying area of low pressure propagated northeast along the boundary. Discrete supercells developed in the morning on December 16 and moved northeast, spawning multiple strong tornadoes over northeast Louisiana and south Mississippi. These storms produced a total of 10 tornadoes.