1 lightning, as filed by the National Weather Service.
Every event with a place to put it; 1 filed by county or forecast zone are drawn at its center, in a lighter ring. Tap one for its entry below.
Deaths and injuries are direct and indirect together, as the offices filed them. Damage is property and crops in the dollars of the year, not adjusted for inflation, and only where an office estimated it.
The local office's own words before the first event, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.
NWS New Orleans, LA wrote its last area forecast discussion before the first event at Jul 7, 2:30 PM CST, 3 hours 30 minutes earlier.
AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS/BATON ROUGE LA 330 PM CDT SUN JUL 7 2002 RADAR IS GETTING BUSY WITH A FEW THUNDERSTORMS HAVING ALREADY REACHED STRONG TO SEVERE THRESHOLDS. SURFACE CONVERGENCE HAS INCREASED ACROSS INLAND SECTIONS OF SOUTH MS NEAR A SURFACE TROUGH...AND OVER AREAS FROM NEAR MORGAN CITY TO THIBODAUX...ALONG THE LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN LAKE BREEZE. MAY HAVE TO ISSUE AFTERNOON PACKAGE WITH A /REMAINDER OF THIS AFTERNOON/ PERIOD IF CONVECTION BECOMES MORE WIDESPREAD AND SEVERE. OUTSIDE OF THUNDERSTORM AREAS...HEAT HAS BECOME A PROBLEM WITH HEAT INDICES GENERALLY IN THE 100 TO 105 DEGREE RANGE. THUNDERSTORMS SHOULD MOSTLY DIE OFF BY MIDNIGHT TONIGHT. ON MONDAY... AN INVERTED MID LEVEL TROUGH MOVING WEST ACROSS THE GULF WILL BRING ADDITIONAL UPPER LEVEL SUPPORT...HOWEVER...SLIGHTLY LIGHTER WIND FIELDS ALOFT AND WEAKER PVA SHOULD KEEP SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS MORE ISOLATED THAN TODAY. TEMPERATURES SHOULD HAVE NO PROBLEM REACHING THE LOWER 90S...BUT SCATTERED CONVECTION COULD GET STARTED A LITTLE EARLIER. WILL BE MONITORING ANY POTENTIAL TROPICAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE CENTRAL GULF OF MEXICO...BUT THIS SYSTEM WILL HAVE NO IMPACT ON WEATHER ALONG THE CENTRAL GULF COAST AS IT WILL LIKELY MOVE WEST TOWARDS THE NORTHEAST MEXICAN OR SOUTH TEXAS COAST. FOR TUESDAY THROUGH FRIDAY...A WEAK UPPER LEVEL RIDGE TO THE NORTH WITH WEAK DISTURBANCES IN THE EASTERLIES OVER THE GULF WILL CONTINUE A SIMILAR PATTERN WITH SCATTERED DIURNAL CONVECTION OVER LAND AND LATE NIGHT AND MORNING CONVECTION OVER THE COASTAL WATERS. TEMPERATURES SHOULD REMAIN FAIRLY CLOSE TO NORMAL. ANOTHER WEAK SURFACE BOUNDARY MAY SAG SOUTH NEAR THE SOUTHWEST MS ZONES THURSDAY AND FRIDAY AS ANOTHER DEEP UPPER TROUGH MOVES ACROSS THE NORTHEAST U.S. MCB 73/92/72/91/73 24242 BTR 73/91/73/90/73 24242 MSY 76/91/75/90/76 14242 GPT 74/89/73/89/74 14242 .NEW...NONE LA...NONE. MS...NONE. 22
The national radar mosaic for the moment the first event began.
1 lightning. Local standard time, as filed.
A lightning strike started a fire in a shed that spread to an adjacent house.
After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.
Every storm in Mississippi in 2002Every state in 2002This day in weather historyWarnings in Mississippi, July 2002
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database, compiled from the National Weather Service’s monthly Storm Data. Complete through 2026-06; NCEI adds each month about 75 days after it ends and revises past years a few times a year. Rebuilt 2026-09-24. Each event’s entry at NCEI: 5311251.