EF1 tornado, Creek to Sykes, Mississippi, August 30, 2012

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

August 30, 2012

Touchdown

9:49 AM CDT (14:49 UTC)

Lifted

9:56 AM CDT (14:56 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

6.1 miles (9.8 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

3

Property damage

$100,000

County

Clarke County

Touchdown point

31.993, -88.496

Lift-off point

32.072, -88.521

Record number

1208300849-01

20 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS JAN, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 105 mph.

• heavy damage to double wide mobile home. several nearby trees snapped. a semi truck trailer was rolled onto its side.
• several trees snapped and uprooted as well.
• tree fell on a house. few other trees snapped. another house had part of the roof damaged.
• the fence around a baseball park was severely damaged. Two light poles at the ball field were snapped at the base. few other trees were snapped. part of the roof of the concession stand at the ball field was removed.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

Tropical Depression Nine formed in the Atlantic, east of the Lesser Antilles, on the morning of August 21, 2012. Twelve hours later, Tropical Depression Nine had strengthened into Tropical Storm Isaac. Isaac continued to track through the eastern Caribbean Sea and Florida Straits while maintaining high end tropical storm strength. Just before noon central time on the 28th, Isaac was located about 75 miles south-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River(or about 160 miles southeast of New Orleans) and was found to have reached hurricane strength with winds of 75mph. An outer rain band from Isaac brought some showers to portions of the ArkLaMiss during the afternoon of the 28th, while the center of Isaac was still churning in the Gulf of Mexico. At 6:45pm on August 28th, Hurricane Isaac made a brief landfall along the coast of Southeast Louisiana in Plaquemines Parish. Maximum sustained winds were 80mph at this landfall. Isaac did not remain over land for long as he was back over water again by 9:00pm that same evening. Isaac made his second landfall along the coast of southeast Louisiana, just to the west of Port Fourchon, around 2:15am August 29th, again with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph. ||Isaac moved very slowly to the north and northwest over the course of August 29th, which made for prolonged impacts. Forward motion of about 5 mph lead to tremendous flooding issues for both Louisiana and portions of Mississippi south of I-20. Around noon on August 29th, Isaac was downgraded to a Tropical Storm, but this was not much relief to the many residents who were being inundated with rain and wind. Storm total rainfall across portions of Marion County indicated at least 10 to 15 inches fell. Numerous homes and buildings were flooded and some water rescues occurred in Lamar, Marion and Clarke counties. Further to the north, flooding issues were not quite as bad with about 5 to 7 inches of rain falling from the I-20 corridor and north. Tropical storm force wind gusts were noted as far north as Bolivar County, with the Golden Triangle region not seeing winds reach more than tropical depression strength. The worst of the wind was felt generally along and south of an axis from Marion County to Adams County. Numerous trees were down in Adams County, leaving many without power for several days. Eighty percent of the roads were blocked in Franklin County due to downed trees. ||With all of the rain that fell, some of the area rivers filled quickly. Minor flooding was recorded on the lower Pearl River at Rockport and Monticello, as well as on Bouie Creek at Hattiesburg and Tallahala Creek at Laurel. The biggest river impact in the Jackson Hydrologic Service Area was on Black Creek at Brooklyn. Black Creek entered moderate flooding and finally crested at 26.71 feet on August 31st at 5pm. This will go down as the second highest crest in history for this particular river and forecast point. This river flooding caused damage to 15 homes both upstream and downstream of the river gage. ||The winds and flooding were not all Isaac brought as a couple of tornadoes touched down in eastern Mississippi. Two tornadoes, one in Clarke County and one in Lauderdale County, occurred during the morning of August 30th. Both were rated EF-1 with winds around 100 mph. The tornado in Clarke County, near Crandall, resulted in 3 injuries to residents of a mobile home. One death attributed to Isaac occurred in Holmes County when a 64 year old woman was killed by a tree falling on her car. Isaac finally moved out of the region by the afternoon of the 30th, and was downgraded to a tropical depression by late afternoon on the 30th as it continued to track to the northwest into Missouri and the Ohio Valley.

This tornado touched down near Crandall and moved northward across eastern Clarke County, ending just south of MS Highway 18. Two mobile homes were heavily damaged and a semi truck was rolled. At a baseball field, two light poles were snapped at the base, the concession stand roof was removed, and a fence was damaged. Multiple outbuildings were damaged or destroyed along the path. Numerous trees were snapped or uprooted. Maximum sustained winds were estimated at 105 mph.

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

13 minutes of warning. NWS JAN issued a tornado warning for this county at 14:36 UTC, 13 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 15:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 12:16 UTC and running to 20:59 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, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 12:49 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.

Meridian/Key Field (MEI), 41 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), 142 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 14:48 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 2012 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.