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EF3 tornado in Amite County, Mississippi

Tornado December 16, 2019 · Amite County, Mississippi

EF3

Rating

29.3 mi

Whole path

880 yd

Path width

Injuries

$500K

Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Amite County → Lincoln County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 880 yards (0.50 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF3 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF3 is severe damage: whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, consistent with estimated gusts of 136–165 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

NWS Storm Survey found damage consistent with an EF-3 tornado. Maximum winds 140mph. Maximum width about 0.5 miles. The tornado first touched down on Judge Road, about 1 mile north of Mississippi State Highway 24. The torando remained on the ground for at least 20 miles as it traveled northeast past the city of Smithdale and into Lincoln County.

The wider storm

A weak surface low associated with a cold front helped develop a line of severe thunderstorms across southern Mississippi. The environment out ahead of this system was highly unstable with an abundant amount of Gulf moisture which helped fuel severe thunderstorms and a few tornadoes in the afternoon hours on December 16th.

Began near Bewelcome (31.1940, -90.8942).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 869156. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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