Tornadoes · United States · Mississippi · 2011

EF0 tornado, Mississippi City, Mississippi, September 19, 2011

This EF0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Harrison County on September 19, 2011, touching down at 12:47 PM CDT 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.

  1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

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

  2. EF186 to 110 mph

    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.

The record

Rating
EF0
Date
September 19, 2011
Touchdown
12:47 PM CDT (17:47 UTC)
Lifted
12:55 PM CDT (17:55 UTC)
On the ground
8 minutes
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
25 yards (23 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Harrison County
Touchdown point
30.377, -89.044
Lift-off point
30.379, -89.044
Record number
1109191147-01

What the Weather Service recorded

Scattered thunderstorms produced a waterspout that moved onshore near Gulfport.

Waterspout reported moving onshore by law enforcement near Courthouse Road. Dissipation occurred at 1255 CDT. No damage reported.

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

The warnings

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
17:18 UTC17:45 UTCMarine WarningLIX
20:04 UTC20:30 UTCMarine WarningLIX
21:09 UTC21:45 UTCMarine WarningLIX

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, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:35 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), 12:00Z

5.8 hours before the tornado, 65 km from the path. September 19, 2011.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Slidell Radar S, LA at 12:00Z on 2011-09-19Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 2343 joules per kilogram, CIN -2, lifted condensation level 530 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Slidell Radar S, LA at 12:00Z on 2011-09-19The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 24 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 17 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
2343 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-2 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1287 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
530 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
17 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
8 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
24 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
53 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.5
Supercell composite
4.2
0-3 km lapse rate
5.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Slidell Radar S, LA (KSIL), 00:00Z

6.2 hours after it, 65 km from the path. September 20, 2011.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Slidell Radar S, LA at 00:00Z on 2011-09-20Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 936 joules per kilogram, CIN -2, lifted condensation level 681 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Slidell Radar S, LA at 00:00Z on 2011-09-20The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 28 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 25 knots.1939Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
936 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-2 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1109 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
681 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
25 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
12 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
28 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
46 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.3
0-3 km lapse rate
6.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Mobile radar (KMOB), 84 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 17:46 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)ReportWhereCountyRemark
17:47 UTCFUNNEL CLOUDBiloxiHarrison, MSFC IN OBSERVATION BEGAN 1242 CDT...ENDED 1258 CDT.

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

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2011 tornado in MississippiEvery tornado in Mississippi since 1950Warnings in force in Mississippi nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of September 19, 2011

1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
September 192:15 PM EDTEF0Orange, FL0.115

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.