EF1 tornado, Baxterville to Okahola, Mississippi, March 2, 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

March 2, 2012

Touchdown

6:23 PM CST (00:23 UTC)

Lifted

6:42 PM CST (00:42 UTC)

On the ground

19 minutes

Path length

11.9 miles (19.2 km)

Path width

300 yards (274 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$400,000

County

Lamar County

Touchdown point

31.108, -89.522

Lift-off point

31.197, -89.349

Record number

1203021823-01

March 2012 came in like a lion as a large severe weather and tornado outbreak occurred on March 2nd. This outbreak covered a large amount of real estate across the Ohio, Tennessee, and Lower Mississippi River Valleys. This event was driven by a powerful storm system which clashed with unusual instability and wind shear for this time of year. ||Across the NWS Jackson, MS service area, quite a bit of severe weather occurred during the afternoon and evening of March 2nd. Most of the severe storms occurred across areas north of I-20. Large hail was the primary main severe weather culprit as several supercell storms produced golf ball sized hail. There were also a few instances of larger hail, up to the size of baseballs. Other instances of wind damage also occurred from these storms along with two tornadoes.

This tornado initially touched down along Beach Road, where it overturned two trailers, took part of the roof off a home, destroyed a shed and caused some tree damage. From there the tornado weakened and seemed to skip along for several miles as it crossed Boggy Hollow Road and Coaltown Road. The tornado strengthened again as it crossed Purvis to Columbia Road. There the tornado caused damage to the roof and siding of a home and snapped several trees. The tornado them weakened again as it moved through the northwest sections of Purvis with only sporadic tree damage. The tornado strengthened again as it crossed Highway 11 and Sherlock Herrington Road. There numerous trees were snapped, the roof and siding of a home were damaged, a large storage shed was heavily damaged, and 3 mobile homes sustained heavy damage. The tornado then reached its peak intensity as it crossed Harold Tucker Road. A strapped down mobile home was blown off its foundation and heavily damaged, two other mobile homes were damaged, and a single family home had part of the roof blown off. Numerous trees were snapped at this location as well. This location had both the maximum winds associated with this tornado of 100 mph and the maximum width of 300 yards.||The tornado then crossed White Chapel Road causing extensive tree damage. It then moved into Forrest County and crossed over Interstate 59 knocking over several trees at a rest stop. The tornado then crossed Browns Bridge Road and Frye Road snapping numerous trees, one of which fell on a house. The tornado lifted shortly after crossing Frye Road.

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

23 minutes of warning. NWS JAN issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:00 UTC, 23 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:47 UTC and running to 05:00 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 19:56 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.

Hattiesburg Municipal (HBG), 21 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

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

69 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 70 of them

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.