F1 tornado, Yazoo City, Mississippi, February 19, 2002

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

February 19, 2002

Touchdown

9:30 PM CST (03:30 UTC)

Path length

0.8 miles (1.3 km)

Path width

250 yards (229 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$150,000

County

Yazoo County

Touchdown point

32.850, -90.420

Lift-off point

32.850, -90.420

Record number

4

A severe squall line moved into Yazoo County Mississippi shortly after 9:25 pm. As the line moved towards western portions of Yazoo City , a tornado briefly touched down. The tornado traveled .8 miles as it moved across a subdivision on the far northwest side of town around 9:30 pm, then lifted back into the clouds. The tornado damaged the roofs of 15 homes with one being completely blown off and carried 70 yards away onto another home. A lot of the damage occurred on the downwind side of homes. A telephone pole was also blown into the bedroom of a home. Several windows were blown out of homes along with several dozen downed trees in the area. Estimated damage was 150,000 dollars.

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

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

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 01:02 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.

Jackson/Hawkins Field (HKS), 60 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The live radar over the trackEvery 2002 tornado in MississippiEvery tornado in Mississippi since 1950Warnings in force in Mississippi nowThe forecast where you are

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.