Tornadoes · United States · Mississippi · 2007
Unrated tornado, Wiggins, Mississippi, January 5, 2007
This Unrated tornado ran 0.4 miles across Stone County on January 5, 2007, touching down at 12:40 AM CST and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $50,000 of property damage.
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 mph
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.
Unratedthis tornado
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
- Unrated
- Date
- January 5, 2007
- Touchdown
- 12:40 AM CST (06:40 UTC)
- Lifted
- 12:42 AM CST (06:42 UTC)
- On the ground
- 2 minutes
- Path length
- 0.4 miles (0.6 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $50,000
- County
- Stone County
- Touchdown point
- 30.850, -89.130
- Lift-off point
- 30.850, -89.130
- Record number
- 0701050040-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A weak tornado developed during the early morning hours over Stone county.
A weak tornado first touched down near the fire station in Wiggins. The tornado did some minor roof damage to the station. The tornado then moved across the street and blew the roof off of the old train depot. The tornado then moved across a business where several metal buildings were damaged. The tornado then went back into the clouds just northeast of the business. Some debris from the train depot was found about a quarter of a mile away near Flint Creek Water Park. No one was injured.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
10 minutes of warning. NWS MOB issued a tornado warning for this county at 06:30 UTC, 10 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 06:45 UTC.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 02:47 UTC and running to 07:18 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 02:47 UTC | 07:18 UTC | Tornado Watch | MOB |
| 06:30 UTC | 06:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | MOB |
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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:35 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), 00:00Z
6.7 hours before the tornado, 86 km from the path. January 5, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 478 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -17 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 150 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 547 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 58 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 29 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 221 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 236 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.7
- Supercell composite
- 4.9
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.0 K/km
Slidell Radar S, LA (KSIL), 12:00Z
5.3 hours after it, 86 km from the path. January 5, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -3 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 14 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 637 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 80 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 21 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -120 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- -140 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.6 K/km
The radar
The Mobile radar (KMOB), 87 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 06:40 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.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 06:07 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Purvis | Lamar, MS | A TREE DOWN ON HWY 589 |
| 06:17 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 7 Nw Gulfport | Harrison, MS | A TRAILER AND PROPANE TANK WERE FLIPPED OVER. POSSIBLE TORNADO. |
| 06:20 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Hattiesburg | Forrest, MS | SEVERAL TREES DOWN AROUND THE CITY. |
| 06:25 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 10 S Hattiesburg | Forrest, MS | SPORATIC TREES DOWN AROUND THE COUNTY |
| 06:25 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Camp Shelby | Forrest, MS | POWER OUTAGE...POSSIBLE TREE ON POWERLINE |
| 06:40 UTC | TORNADO | Wiggins | Stone, MS | ROOF DAMAGE TO TRAIN DEPOT AND OTHER COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS IN WIGGINS. ONE HOUSE WITH ROOF DAMAGE IN WIGGINS ALSO. |
| 06:50 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Hattiesburg | Forrest, MS | SEVERAL TREES DOWN AROUND THE CITY |
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 January 5, 2007
12 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January 5 | 12:27 AM CST | Unrated | Jones, MS | 1.2 | 100 | $75,000 | ||
| January 5 | 12:57 AM CST | Unrated | Newton, MS | 4.9 | 300 | $2.2 million | ||
| January 5 | 1:07 AM CST | Unrated | Neshoba, MS | 3.0 | 400 | $200,000 | ||
| January 5 | 1:25 AM CST | Unrated | Neshoba, MS | 1.4 | 150 | $150,000 | ||
| January 5 | 1:40 AM CST | Unrated | Kemper, MS | 2.2 | 250 | 9 | $600,000 | |
| January 5 | 2:05 AM CST | Unrated | Noxubee, MS | 3.7 | 300 | $20,000 | ||
| January 5 | 10:05 AM EST | Unrated | Coweta, GA | 5.4 | 200 | $250,000 | ||
| January 5 | 11:00 AM EST | Unrated | Coweta, GA | 1.7 | 200 | $45,000 | ||
| January 5 | 2:24 PM EST | Unrated | Pickens, SC | 0.1 | 20 | 15 | $50,000 | |
| January 5 | 3:11 PM EST | Unrated | Spartanburg, SC | 0.3 | 50 | $10,000 | ||
| January 5 | 4:39 PM EST | Unrated | Gaston, NC | 0.3 | 20 | $20,000 | ||
| January 5 | 5:10 PM EST | Unrated | Ware, GA | 2.0 | 100 | $20,000 |
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.