EF2 Tornado — Jones, Mississippi

2020-04-23 · near Service, Jones, Mississippi

Event narrative

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.

Wider weather episode

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.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (31.7608, -89.2247)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 899720. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.