EF1 tornado, Collins to Hot Coffee, Mississippi, December 20, 2007

1. EF065 to 85 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 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. EF3136 to 165 mph

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. EF5over 200 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

EF1

Date

December 20, 2007

Touchdown

10:10 AM CST (16:10 UTC)

Lifted

10:19 AM CST (16:19 UTC)

On the ground

9 minutes

Path length

7.2 miles (11.5 km)

Path width

500 yards (457 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$700,000

County

Covington County

Touchdown point

31.626, -89.552

Lift-off point

31.681, -89.449

Record number

0712201010-01

A small, but potent, storm system evolved and moved east across the region during the first half of the day. A large MCV (meso-scale convective vortex) developed across Central Louisiana during the morning hours and moved east adding an extra kick to the atmosphere and aided in generating a line of severe thunderstorms which produced five tornadoes and wind damage. All the severe weather was confined to the southern areas, generally along Highway 84, and extended from Natchez to Brookhaven to Laurel.

This tornado touched down just south of Collins to just southeast of the Highway 84 and 37 intersection. The damage began on the south side of Collins where a billboard was blown over and a warehouse building was destroyed. Numerous trees were uprooted and snapped as the tornado tracked east-northeast. The tornado reached its peak intensity and maximum width along Dennis Knight Road. Here, numerous large trees were snapped and uprooted including a swath where a large majority of the trees were snapped off. The tornado continued moving east-northeast, where the roof of a chicken house was completely removed and caused minor to moderate roof damage to two homes.

This tornado was brief and touched down just inside the Covington County border with Jones County. The roofs were blown off of two mobile homes with extensive debris strewn. One home had a part of it's roof removed along with numerous pine trees snapped and uprooted in a convergent path.

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

19 minutes of warning. NWS JAN issued a tornado warning for this county at 15:51 UTC, 19 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 16:29 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 16:05 UTC and running to 19:13 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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 12:48 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.

Pine Belt Regional Awos (PIB), 26 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Jackson/Brandon,MS radar (KDGX), 83 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 16:10 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 2007 tornado in MississippiEvery tornado in Mississippi since 1950Warnings in force in Mississippi nowThe forecast where you are

4 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.