EF1 Tornado — Forrest, Mississippi

2008-03-03 · near Mc Laurin, Forrest, Mississippi

Event narrative

This tornado touched down at Camp Shelby and snapped or uprooted numerous trees, and downed several power lines along the short path. Twelve buildings, mostly barracks, were damaged. Several buildings had the roofs severely damaged with one roof nearly completely torn off. Several walls of the barrack buildings collapsed where the roof support was lost. A hummer was turned over and windows were blown out of several other vehicles. Maximum wind speed was 110 mph.

Wider weather episode

A strong upper level system and evolving surface low moved across the region late on March 3rd. These features combined to bring a potent weather system to the area and a healthy round of severe thunderstorms from late afternoon through around midnight. It was a line of thunderstorms which brought most of the severe weather, but a few supercells did occur just ahead of the line. Ten tornadoes occurred, two of which were strong (EF-2), along with a good deal of wind damage as the line pushed east across Mississippi.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (31.1989, -89.2265)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 88437. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.