F1 tornado, Saucier, Mississippi, November 21, 1997

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 mphthis tornado

   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.

Rating

F1

Date

November 21, 1997

Touchdown

3:25 PM CST (21:25 UTC)

Path length

0.3 miles (0.5 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Harrison County

Touchdown point

30.580, -89.200

Lift-off point

30.580, -89.200

Record number

1133

A severe thunderstorm moved out of St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana into extreme south Mississippi. Several short lived tornadoes touched down as it crossed Pearl River, Hancock, and Harrison Counties. Near Nicholson, a tornado touched down near Nicholson, moving through a mobile home park and also passing across the Mississippi Visitors Center on Interstate Highway 59. Damage path was estimated at approximately four miles, due to lack of ground access in Pearl River drainage area to the west of Nicholson. Preliminary reports from Pearl River County and state officials indicated that 3 single family homes were destroyed and 18 others heavily damaged; and 21 mobile homes were destroyed and 8 others heavily damaged. Several car windows were blown out when the tornado passed through the Visitors Center. One person was injured in the mobile home park and another person suffered minor injuries in a nearby subdivision when their auto was hit by falling trees and limbs. Large hail was also reported by the Sheriffs Office in McNeil. Two addtional tornado touch-downs were reported in north Hancock County and north Harrison County as the severe thunderstorm moved northeast. In north Hancock County, civil defense reported two homes were damaged along with two mobile homes when a tornado touched down in a rural area. In north Harrison County, a tornado damaged a convenience store along with heavily damaging a couple of mobile homes. The tornado path lengths in Hancock and Harrison Counties were estimated from damage reports.

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

42 minutes of warning. NWS LIX issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:43 UTC, 42 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:45 UTC.

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 Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 10:59 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 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.

The Mobile radar (KMOB), 93 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:25 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

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

8 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.

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