F3 tornado, Fayette, Mississippi, November 23, 2004

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 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 mphthis tornado

   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

F3

Date

November 23, 2004

Touchdown

11:40 PM CST (05:40 UTC)

Path length

18.0 miles (29.0 km)

Path width

600 yards (549 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$300,000

Counties

Jefferson and Claiborne counties

Touchdown point

31.720, -91.200

Lift-off point

31.850, -90.950

Record number

1787

This tornado touched down just west of the Natchez Trace, 8 miles west of Fayette and tracked northeast for 18 miles across Jefferson county. Between the Natchez Trace and highway 553 the tornado was in its early stages and produced F0 damage by downing several trees. Between highway 553 and US Highway 61 this tornado began to intensify and downed or snapped hundreds of trees. One mobile home and two sheds sustained minor damage as they were located on the northern edge of the circulation. As it approached US Highway 61, it moved through an open field and was at its widest point, 600 yards. Here a string of seven power poles were snapped and a large tractor shed was destroyed. The frame of the shed was made of large I-beams. These beams were snapped from their base as the shed was blown away. In the area around US Highway 61 four homes sustained major roof damage. On the east side of the highway one of these homes lost almost the entire roof and had every window blown out. For a three mile stretch between US Highway 61 and highway 552 the tornado was at its strongest and produced F3 damage. Every tree in the forest, along this stretch, was uprooted or snapped. The tornado began to weaken after passing across highway 552 and dissipated just on the other side of the Claiborne county line.

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

13 minutes of warning. NWS JAN issued a tornado warning for this county at 05:27 UTC, 13 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 06:15 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 01:14 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 Jackson/Brandon,MS radar (KDGX), 117 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 05:40 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 2004 tornado in MississippiEvery tornado in Mississippi since 1950Warnings in force in Mississippi nowThe forecast where you are

47 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.