Tornadoes · United States · Mississippi · 1997

F0 tornado, Lexington to Durant, Mississippi, May 14, 1997

From Lexington to Durant, this F0 tornado ran 2.0 miles across Holmes County on May 14, 1997, touching down at 5:35 PM CDT and reaching 30 yards wide. It killed nobody.

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 mphthis tornado

    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 mph

    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
F0
Date
May 14, 1997
Touchdown
5:35 PM CDT (22:35 UTC)
Path length
2.0 miles (3.2 km)
Path width
30 yards (27 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Holmes County
Touchdown point
33.120, -89.880
Lift-off point
33.120, -89.870
Record number
781

What the Weather Service recorded

This tornado was filmed as it crossed Interstate 55. No damage occurred with this tornado.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

The warnings

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
21:10 UTC22:00 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningJAN
21:57 UTC22:45 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningJAN
22:23 UTC23:15 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningJAN

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:49 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

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.

Jackson, MS (KJAN), 12:00Z

10.6 hours before the tornado, 91 km from the path. May 14, 1997.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Jackson, MS at 12:00Z on 1997-05-14Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 257 joules per kilogram, CIN -113, lifted condensation level 784 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 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, Jackson, MS at 12:00Z on 1997-05-14The 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 132 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 33 knots.193958Sfc1 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
257 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-113 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
784 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
33 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
21 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
132 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
144 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.3
0-3 km lapse rate
3.5 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Jackson, MS (KJAN), 00:00Z

1.4 hours after it, 91 km from the path. May 15, 1997.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Jackson, MS at 00:00Z on 1997-05-15Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 168 joules per kilogram, CIN -78, lifted condensation level 1961 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 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, Jackson, MS at 00:00Z on 1997-05-15The 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 61 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 34 knots.193958Sfc1 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
168 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-78 J/kg
Surface CAPE
495 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1961 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
34 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
8 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
61 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
129 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.7
0-3 km lapse rate
7.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1997 tornado in MississippiEvery tornado in Mississippi since 1950Warnings in force in Mississippi nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 14, 1997

4 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 146:05 PM EDTF1Clinton, OH2.0500$20,000
May 146:10 PM EDTF1Fayette, OH3.0500$30,000
May 145:40 PM CDTF1Attala, MS1.570$20,000
May 147:00 PM EDTF1Ross, OH25.0500$30,000

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.