EF0 tornado in Covington County, Mississippi

Tornado March 4, 2020 · Covington County, Mississippi

EF0

Rating

9.3 mi

Whole path

400 yd

Path width

$26K

Damage as recorded

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 400 yards (0.23 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF0 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF0 is light damage: shingles and siding peeled, gutters torn, branches broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 65–85 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 tornado touched down in far eastern Jefferson Davis County just south of US 84 along Ponderosa Road where a few large softwood tree limbs were snapped. The tornado then moved northeast into Covington County uprooting and snapping softwood trees along Mosshill Road. It pushed east crossing US Highway 35 where it uprooted hardwood trees. It continued to uproot softwood trees at Kelly Road and Friendship Road, just north of US 84. It caused the removal of a few shingles off of a one-story home along Dan Easterling Road while also uprooting softwood trees. The tornado showed signs of weakening once it progressed eastward to Faler Road and Campbell-Faler Road, as only a few large softwood tree limbs were snapped. Once the tornado reached Collins-Spencer Road, west of Collins, it lifted but not before uprooting a few softwood trees. Maximum winds were 75 mph in Jefferson Davis County, but overall the tornado had maximum winds of 85 mph in Covington County. Total path length was around 9.3 miles and maximum width was 400 yards in Covington County.

The wider storm

A cold front stalled across southern Mississippi by the early morning hours on March 4th. With strong wind shear and an unstable atmosphere in place along the boundary, a few rounds of severe thunderstorms developed and moved across central and southern portions of Mississippi through the morning. These storms produced significant wind and hail including a swath of 90 mph wind and wind-driven hail damage to trees and structures that extended from Yazoo County to Newton County. There was also one EF-0 tornado which developed in Jefferson Davis County and moved into Covington County.

Began near Williamsburg (31.6420, -89.7550).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 880950. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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