Tornadoes · United States · Mississippi · 1988

F2 tornado, Leflore and Tallahatchie counties, Mississippi, December 27, 1988

This F2 tornado ran 18.0 miles across Leflore and Tallahatchie counties on December 27, 1988, touching down at 8:57 PM CST and reaching 73 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $50,000 to $500,000 of property damage.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  1. F040 to 72 mph

    Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

  2. F173 to 112 mph

    Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

  3. F2113 to 157 mphthis tornado

    Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.

  4. F3158 to 206 mph

    Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

  5. F4207 to 260 mph

    Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

  6. F5261 to 318 mph

    Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.

  7. Unrated

    The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.

The record

Rating
F2
Date
December 27, 1988
Touchdown
8:57 PM CST (02:57 UTC)
Path length
18.0 miles (29.0 km)
Path width
73 yards (67 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$50,000 to $500,000
Counties
Leflore and Tallahatchie counties
Touchdown point
33.730, -90.230
Lift-off point
33.900, -90.100
Record number
693

The air that afternoon

The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.

Little Rock, AR (KLZK), 00:00Z

3.0 hours before the tornado, 115 km from the path. December 28, 1988.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Little Rock, AR at 00:00Z on 1988-12-28Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -8244, lifted condensation level 3625 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Little Rock, AR at 00:00Z on 1988-12-28The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity -75 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 95 knots.1939587897117Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-8244 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
3625 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
95 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
16 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-75 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
193 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
2.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Greenwood/Leflore (GWO), 36 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
00:00 UTC

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1988 tornado in MississippiEvery tornado in Mississippi since 1950Warnings in force in Mississippi nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of December 27, 1988

7 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
December 276:45 PM CSTF1Tate, MS1.540$5,000 to $50,000
December 278:21 PM CSTF1Panola, MS1.030$5,000 to $50,000
December 279:25 PM CSTF1Tallahatchie, MS7.070$50,000 to $500,000
December 279:28 PM CSTF1Tallahatchie, MS2.050
December 279:55 PM CSTF1Sharkey, MS3.0100$50,000 to $500,000
December 2710:00 PM CSTF2Yalobusha, MS5.073$50,000 to $500,000
December 2710:25 PM CSTF2Humphreys, MS10.073$50,000 to $500,000

What this means

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.

Sources

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.