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EF2 tornado in Jones County, Mississippi

Tornado April 23, 2020 · Jones County, Mississippi

EF2
Rating
16.9 mi
Path length
2,640 yd
Path width
$300K
Damage as recorded
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 2,640 yards (1.50 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF2 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF2 is considerable damage: roofs torn off well-built houses, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, consistent with estimated gusts of 111–135 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

The storm moved across northern Jones County, where it briefly intensified to an EF-2 tornado. At its widest, the storm stretched nearly 1.5 miles. The tornado developed northeast of Soso, just east of the Amy community. The tornado tracked over areas recently devastated by tornadoes on Easter, so it was difficult to identify new damage in some areas. Scattered to numerous trees were snapped and uprooted as the tornado moved east across northern Jones County toward Sandersville. The storm intensified briefly to a low EF-2 along Lake Como Road, where the southern half of a chicken house was completely destroyed. Numerous trees were snapped and uprooted in the area. There was some structural damage caused by trees falling on houses. The most widespread damage extended from Shady Grove to Sharon, where swaths of trees were mowed down, snapped and uprooted. Downed powerlines blocked several roads. Several homes were damaged or destroyed by falling trees. The storm moved through Sandersville, where more trees were snapped and uprooted. The storm continued to move through heavily wooded areas north and east of Sandersville causing damage along the Jasper County line and near the Wayne County line.

The wider storm

An upper level storm system moved across the region overnight on April 22nd into 23rd. Abundant moisture and wind energy was in place to bring severe thunderstorms to the region. Damaging winds occurred along with some tornadoes. Flash flooding also occurred with efficient rainfall rates and heavy rainfall. As the cold front moved through the region later during the afternoon of the 23rd, a few more storms developed during peak daytime heating and brought some hail and damaging winds to portions of eastern Mississippi.

Began near Service (31.7608, -89.2247).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

2 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 899720. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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