EF3 Tornado — Lamar, Mississippi

2019-12-16 · near Sumrall, Lamar, Mississippi

Event narrative

This tornado began near Bear Bay off of Rocky Branch Road where it snapped a few softwood tree limbs and removed a large portion of a home's roof. The tornado rapidly increased in strength as it progressed northeast to west of Mississippi Highway 589/Main Street where it snapped numerous softwood trees. The damage here supported a multi-vortex tornado as one very intense vortex occurred. A well built brick structure had the roof removed and one of the exterior walls collapsed. Six vehicles were thrown with two large vans thrown 40-60 yards into a pile. One hardwood tree was ripped out of the ground (with no root ball) and piled by the vans. It then crossed Mississippi Highway 589/Main Street snapping and uprooting multiple softwood trees and causing damage to the portion of a one-story home. It continued to snap the trunks and large branches of softwood trees when it moved northeast to Poplar Street. A large cluster of snapped softwood trees was clearly evident once it neared Mississippi Highway 42, and it continued to snap softwood trees when it crossed Mississippi Highway 42. Just north of Highway 42, an insulation company had damage to its metal storage building, where some walls were pulled from the building. When the tornado reached the Sumrall Sports Complex at Rayburn Road, it caused damage to the fence and bleachers. The tornado continued northeast to the Lamar and Covington County line where it continued to snap large softwood tree branches along the Lamar County side, and uprooted a few softwood trees along southern Covington County. Maximum winds were 136 mph. Total path length was 5.84 miles.

Wider weather episode

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.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (31.3902, -89.5764)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 865247. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.