Tornadoes · United States · Mississippi · 2007
EF0 tornado, Ocean Spgs, Mississippi, February 13, 2007
This EF0 tornado ran 0.3 miles across Jackson County on February 13, 2007, touching down at 7:20 AM CST and reaching 25 yards wide. It killed nobody.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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.
The record
- Rating
- EF0
- Date
- February 13, 2007
- Touchdown
- 7:20 AM CST (13:20 UTC)
- Lifted
- 7:23 AM CST (13:23 UTC)
- On the ground
- 3 minutes
- Path length
- 0.3 miles (0.5 km)
- Path width
- 25 yards (23 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Jackson County
- Touchdown point
- 30.448, -88.743
- Lift-off point
- 30.448, -88.743
- Record number
- 0702130720-01
What the Weather Service recorded
Isolated supercell thunderstorms developed in the morning hours over sections of south Mississippi well in advance of a squall line associated with a strong upper air storm system and cold front moving through the lower Mississippi Valley. These rogue rotating supercell storms produced tornadoes as well as large hail and isolated wind damage.
A weak tornado briefly touched down near mile marker 56 on Interstate 10 causing no significant damage.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
16 minutes of warning. NWS LIX issued a tornado warning for this county at 13:04 UTC, 16 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 13:45 UTC.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 08:48 UTC and running to 14:05 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 08:48 UTC | 14:05 UTC | Tornado Watch | LIX |
| 13:04 UTC | 13:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | LIX |
| 13:31 UTC | 14:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | LIX |
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 forecast that day
The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 12:40 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 air that afternoon
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.
Slidell Radar S, LA (KSIL), 12:00Z
1.3 hours before the tornado, 94 km from the path. February 13, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 514 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -25 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 66 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 649 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 37 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 24 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 149 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 196 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 1.8
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.5 K/km
Slidell Radar S, LA (KSIL), 00:00Z
10.7 hours after it, 94 km from the path. February 14, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -83973 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 3 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1654 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 49 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 15 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 19 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 106 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 7.2 K/km
The radar
The Mobile radar (KMOB), 55 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 13:21 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.
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12:30 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 5 N Gulfport | Harrison, MS | SHEDS AND FENCES BLOWN DOWN IN THE ORANGE GROVE AREA. TREES AND POWERLINES DOWN ALONG HIGHWAY 49 FROM LYMAN TO ORANGE GROVE. POSSIBLE TORNADO DAMAGE. |
| 13:15 UTC | HAIL 1 | Gulfport | Harrison, MS | |
| 13:25 UTC | TORNADO | 5 Ene Ocean Springs | Jackson, MS | ACTUALLY SIGHTED CROSSING I-10 NEAR MILE MARKER 56 NEAR HIGHWAY 57 INTERSECTION. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2007 tornado in MississippiEvery tornado in Mississippi since 1950Warnings in force in Mississippi nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of February 13, 2007
20 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| February 13 | 12:10 AM CST | EF1 | Lafayette Parish, LA | 2.2 | 50 | $250,000 | ||
| February 13 | 12:36 AM CST | EF2 | Saint Martin Parish, LA | 4.3 | 300 | 3 | $1.5 million | |
| February 13 | 1:03 AM CST | EF0 | Iberia Parish, LA | 0.5 | 25 | $30,000 | ||
| February 13 | 1:25 AM CST | EF0 | Vermilion Parish, LA | 0.5 | 25 | $40,000 | ||
| February 13 | 2:55 AM CST | EF2 | Jefferson Parish, LA | 2.3 | 50 | 9 | $2.0 million | |
| February 13 | 3:03 AM CST | EF2 | Orleans Parish, LA | 6.5 | 50 | 15 | $2.0 million | |
| February 13 | 3:10 AM CST | EF2 | Orleans Parish, LA | 1.3 | 50 | 1 | 10 | $1.0 million |
| February 13 | 3:52 AM CST | EF1 | Smith, MS | 3.7 | 75 | $300,000 | ||
| February 13 | 4:13 AM CST | EF0 | Jefferson Davis, MS | 3.0 | 75 | $5,000 | ||
| February 13 | 4:45 AM CST | EF0 | Pearl River, MS | 0.3 | 25 | $2,000 | ||
| February 13 | 3:05 PM EST | EF1 | Liberty, FL | 0.3 | 50 | $15,000 | ||
| February 13 | 5:47 PM EST | EF1 | McCormick, SC | 16.0 | 200 | $4,000 | ||
| February 13 | 5:55 PM EST | EF1 | Edgefield, SC | 15.3 | 60 | |||
| February 13 | 5:01 PM CST | EF0 | Hale, AL | 6.5 | 25 | $55,000 | ||
| February 13 | 5:10 PM CST | EF1 | Bibb, AL | 9.7 | 400 | $105,000 | ||
| February 13 | 6:28 PM EST | EF1 | Screven, GA | 0.6 | 35 | 1 | $9,000 | |
| February 13 | 5:48 PM CST | EF0 | Bibb, AL | 7.5 | 250 | $10,000 | ||
| February 13 | 7:01 PM EST | EF1 | Allendale, SC | 0.0 | 30 | $3,000 | ||
| February 13 | 6:22 PM CST | EF1 | Autauga, AL | 1.1 | 200 | $10,000 | ||
| February 13 | 7:27 PM EST | EF0 | Bamberg, SC | 2.0 | 40 |
What this means
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.
Sources
NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.