F3 tornado, Sumrall, Mississippi, November 15, 2006

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 15, 2006

Touchdown

2:30 AM CST (08:30 UTC)

Path length

13.0 miles (20.9 km)

Path width

500 yards (457 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

6

Property damage

$1.5 million

Counties

Lamar and Forrest counties

Touchdown point

31.350, -89.630

Lift-off point

31.430, -89.310

Record number

1027

An intense fall cyclone developed over the region and produced an episode of severe weather which included tornadoes. This strong weather system developed as a very strong jet stream, with winds between 160-200 mph, slammed into Oregon and Washington State. All that energy moved over the Rocky Mountains and caused a strong area of surface low pressure to develop. This low intensified as it moved east across the Red River Valley and then lifted across Arkansas and into Tennessee as it deepened to 990 mb! The strength of this deepening low caused warm and unstable air to lift northward across Louisiana and into central Mississippi. It was this northward moving warm front that became the focus of an area where tornadic supercell thunderstorms could thrive in an unstable and highly sheared environment.|This large and powerful storm system produced numerous tornadoes across the south and south eastern United States where many were of the strong (F2 or F3) variety. Within the Jackson, MS forecast area, there were a total of 5 tornadoes to impact the counties serviced. Two F3s, one in Lamar County and the other in Jones County. The Jones County tornado actually contained a satellite tornado, F1, which briefly rotated around the parent tornado. Next was an F1 tornado in southern Marion County which was actually the end of a strong tornado that moved out of Walthall County. Lastly, a brief F1 tornado occurred in central Lamar County. Tornadoes were not the only type of severe weather, scattered wind damage also occurred across northeast Louisiana and portions of central Mississippi between midnight and 10 am Wednesday November 15th 2006.

This strong tornado touched down to the southwest of Sumrall and tracked east northeast across northern Lamar County and then into a small portion of extreme northwest Forrest County before dissipating. Approximately 25 homes were damaged, 16 of those suffering major damage or total destruction. The worst damage was along Old Salt Road, where a wood frame home on a concrete block foundation was totally destroyed, with the foundation cleared and the remnants of the home displaced dozens of yards away. A minivan was picked up and thrown/rolled a distance of approximately 150 yards, landing on top of a tractor and totally destroyed. Some large trees at this location were snapped at the base, denuded, and partially debarked. Heavy damage of F2 intensity was also observed along Foster Road, JD Hatten Road, and Rocky Branch road. Large swaths of trees were snapped and uprooted, and a few frame homes totally lost their roofs. Other damage along the path was weaker and generally of F1 intensity. The tornado then crossed Highway 42 and entered extreme northwest Forrest County. The total path length across Lamar and Forrest Counties was 13 miles.

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

16 minutes of warning. NWS JAN issued a tornado warning for this county at 08:14 UTC, 16 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 09:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 08:00 UTC and running to 16:03 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 05:58 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), 110 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 08:30 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.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2006 tornado in MississippiEvery tornado in Mississippi since 1950Warnings in force in Mississippi nowThe forecast where you are

27 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.