F1 tornado, Purvis, 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 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 15, 2006

Touchdown

3:50 AM CST (09:50 UTC)

Path length

1.0 miles (1.6 km)

Path width

70 yards (64 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Lamar County

Touchdown point

31.220, -89.340

Lift-off point

31.220, -89.340

Record number

1031

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 tornado touched down briefly off Lookout Tower Road. The tornado destroyed an outbuilding and took the roof off a large shed. Numerous pine trees were also snapped or blown down along the path.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

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 Mobile radar (KMOB), 121 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 09:51 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.