Tornadoes · United States · Mississippi · 2013

EF0 tornado, Grange Hall, Mississippi, December 20, 2013

This EF0 tornado ran 0.2 miles across Warren County on December 20, 2013, touching down at 4:41 PM CST and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $5,000 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.

  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
December 20, 2013
Touchdown
4:41 PM CST (22:41 UTC)
Lifted
4:42 PM CST (22:42 UTC)
On the ground
1 minutes
Path length
0.2 miles (0.4 km)
Path width
50 yards (46 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$5,000
County
Warren County
Touchdown point
32.155, -90.775
Lift-off point
32.157, -90.771
Record number
1312201641-01

What the Weather Service recorded

A squall line took shape across west-central Louisiana early to mid afternoon on the 21st. The squall line gradually moved to the east with some strong storms and embedded supercells developing in the ArkLaMiss Delta. The supercells produced a tornado in the far northwestern portions of the ArkLaMiss Delta. The tornado began in Chicot County, southeast of Dermott, and tracked through Chicot and Desha counties in Arkansas, before dissipating in Bolivar County Mississippi northwest of Cleveland. As the squall line progressed east through the late afternoon and evening multiple trees and power lines were downed across Mississippi. A 64 mph wind gust was recorded at the Cleveland Municipal Airport. The line of storms weakened later in the evening and finally moved out of the region in the early morning hours of December 22nd.||In addition to the damage from the line of storms, strong gradient winds ahead of the storms caused trees and power lines to fall in Adams, Clarke and Jones counties. Winds speeds between 45 and 50 mph were measured ahead of the line of the storms at the Greenville, Greenwood and Meridian airports.

This brief tornado touched down along the Big Black River and crossed Fisher Ferry Road. Roughly five to eight trees had very large limbs or part of the trunk broken off. There was also limb debris scattered across the roadway. Maximum winds were estimated at 70 mph.

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

What forecasters said that day

The local office's own words before the tornado touched down, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.

NWS Jackson, MS wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at Dec 20, 3:47 PM CST, 54 minutes earlier.

Area forecast discussion, Dec 20, 3:47 PM CST, 54 minutes before
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Hazardous weather outlook, Dec 20, 3:15 PM CST, 1 hour 26 minutes before
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In the hours before

Special weather statement, Dec 20, 3:48 PM CST, 53 minutes before
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Special weather statement, Dec 20, 3:58 PM CST, 43 minutes before
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Special weather statement, Dec 20, 4:23 PM CST, 18 minutes before
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The surface observations

Vicksburg (VKS), 17 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
00:00 UTC

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

The radar

The Jackson/Brandon,MS radar (KDGX), 75 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:42 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.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2013 tornado in MississippiEvery tornado in Mississippi since 1950Warnings in force in Mississippi nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of December 20, 2013

2 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
December 204:56 PM CSTEF0Hinds, MS0.130
December 206:33 PM CSTEF0Jefferson, AR1.5150$100,000

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.