Tornadoes · United States · Mississippi · 2001
F0 tornado, Madison, Mississippi, December 13, 2001
This F0 tornado ran 0.2 miles across Madison County on December 13, 2001, touching down at 6:30 PM CST and reaching 25 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $1,000 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.
F040 to 72 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
F4207 to 260 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- December 13, 2001
- Touchdown
- 6:30 PM CST (00:30 UTC)
- Path length
- 0.2 miles (0.3 km)
- Path width
- 25 yards (23 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $1,000
- County
- Madison County
- Touchdown point
- 32.470, -90.100
- Lift-off point
- 32.470, -90.100
- Record number
- 637
What the Weather Service recorded
A brief tornado touchdown occurred west of Interstate 55 in the southwest portion of the county. Several trees were knocked down and 4 inch diameter branches snapped off. Three-quarter inch hail also occurred at this time.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
What forecasters said that day
The local office's own words before the tornado touched down, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.
NWS Jackson, MS wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at Dec 13, 5:35 PM CST, 55 minutes earlier.
Area forecast discussion, Dec 13, 5:35 PM CST, 55 minutes before
AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION...UPDATED... NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE JACKSON MS 535 PM CST THU DEC 13 2001 HAVE UPDATED THE ZONES TO REFLECT THE TORNADO WATCH THAT IS IN EFFECT UNTIL 10 PM. ALSO WORDED IN THE SEVERE POTENTIAL FOR THIS EVENING. .JAN... MS...FFA ALONG/NW OF A MERIDIAN-MONTICELLO LINE THROUGH MIDNIGHT. LA...FFA ALL NE ZONES THROUGH MIDNIGHT. AR...FFA ALL EXTREME SE ZONES THROUGH MIDNIGHT. 17
In the hours before
Local storm report, Dec 13, 5:53 PM CST, 37 minutes before
PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT...CORRECTED
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE JACKSON MS
553 PM CST THU DEC 13 2001
TIME(CST) .....CITY LOCATION..... STATE ...EVENT/REMARKS...
....COUNTY LOCATION....
0550 PM LA FLOODING
12/13/01 WEST CARROLL SHERIFFS OFFICE REPORTED
SIGNIFICANT FLOODING OF
MANY COUNTY ROADS...WITH
SOME WATER ABOUT TO ENTER
SOME HOMES.Local storm report, Dec 13, 5:59 PM CST, 31 minutes before
PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE JACKSON MS
559 PM CST THU DEC 13 2001
TIME(CST) .....CITY LOCATION..... STATE ...EVENT/REMARKS...
....COUNTY LOCATION....
0558 PM EDWARDS MS 0.75 INCH HAIL
12/13/01 HINDS HINDS EOC REPORTED DIME
SIZE HAILLocal storm report, Dec 13, 6:22 PM CST, 8 minutes before
PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE JACKSON MS
622 PM CST THU DEC 13 2001
TIME(CST) .....CITY LOCATION..... STATE ...EVENT/REMARKS...
....COUNTY LOCATION....
0615 PM POCAHANTAS MS 1.25 INCH HAIL
12/13/01 HINDS HINDS COUNTY EOC REPORTED
QUARTER SIZE HAIL.
0620 PM NATCHEZ MS 0.75 INCH HAIL
12/13/01 ADAMS NATCHEZ EOC REPORTED
PENNY SIZE HAIL.Local storm report, Dec 13, 6:24 PM CST, 6 minutes before
PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE JACKSON MS
624 PM CST THU DEC 13 2001
TIME(CST) .....CITY LOCATION..... STATE ...EVENT/REMARKS...
....COUNTY LOCATION....
0622 PM 1N POCAHANTAS MS FUNNEL CLOUD
12/13/01 HINDS SPOTTERS REPORTED FUNNEL
CLOUD ON HINDS/MADISON
COUNTY LINE.Local storm report, Dec 13, 6:26 PM CST, 4 minutes before
PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE JACKSON MS
626 PM CST THU DEC 13 2001
TIME(CST) .....CITY LOCATION..... STATE ...EVENT/REMARKS...
....COUNTY LOCATION....
0622 PM 1N POCAHANTAS MS FUNNEL CLOUD
12/13/01 HINDS SPOTTERS REPORTED FUNNEL
CLOUD ON HINDS/MADISON
COUNTY LINE.
0625 PM 2N POCAHANTAS MS WIND DAMAGE
12/13/01 HINDS HINDS COUNTY EOC REPORTED
POWERLINES DOWN NEAR
MADISON COUNTY LINE ON
HIGHWAY 49Local storm report, Dec 13, 6:29 PM CST, 1 minute before
PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE JACKSON MS
629 PM CST THU DEC 13 2001
TIME(CST) .....CITY LOCATION..... STATE ...EVENT/REMARKS...
....COUNTY LOCATION....
0625 PM 2N POCAHANTAS MS WIND DAMAGE
12/13/01 HINDS HINDS COUNTY EOC REPORTED
POWERLINES DOWN NEAR
MADISON COUNTY LINE ON
HIGHWAY 49The 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), 00:00Z
0.5 hours before the tornado, 17 km from the path. December 14, 2001.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -48042 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 646 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 60 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 31 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 458 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 569 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.7
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.2 K/km
The surface observations
Jackson/Thompson (JAN), 17 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (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 2001 tornado in MississippiEvery tornado in Mississippi since 1950Warnings in force in Mississippi nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of December 13, 2001
5 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| December 13 | 6:22 PM CST | F0 | Hinds, MS | 0.2 | 30 | $1,000 | ||
| December 13 | 6:45 PM CST | F0 | Rankin, MS | 0.1 | 25 | $1,000 | ||
| December 13 | 8:30 PM CST | F1 | Terrebonne Parish, LA | 0.2 | 25 | $100,000 | ||
| December 13 | 9:05 PM CST | F0 | Jefferson Parish, LA | 0.2 | 25 | $100,000 | ||
| December 13 | 9:50 PM CST | F0 | Perry, MS | 0.1 | 20 | $10,000 |
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.