EF1 tornado, Free Trade to Madden, Mississippi, April 28, 2014

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

April 28, 2014

Touchdown

7:08 PM CDT (00:08 UTC)

Lifted

7:19 PM CDT (00:19 UTC)

On the ground

11 minutes

Path length

5.0 miles (8.1 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$400,000

County

Leake County

Touchdown point

32.675, -89.425

Lift-off point

32.693, -89.341

Record number

1404281808-01

16 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 110 mph.

• trees snapped and some uprooted.
• snapped trees and several uprooted.
• Two sheds destroyed, medal roof torn off a mobile home and minor damage to another home. Trees down.
• Chicken house heavily damaged.

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

A powerful spring storm system brought a multi-day severe weather outbreak across a large portion of the country during the April 27-30 time frame. This outbreak started across the Central Plains on the 27th and slowly migrated eastward over the following two days. A large tornado outbreak occurred across the Lower MS River & TN River Valleys on the 28th. The event was capped on the 30th with additional severe weather and a historic flash flooding/heavy rain event along the AL, FL gulf coast where rainfall totals peaked between 15-25 inches!||Across the NWS Jackson, MS forecast area, the tornado outbreak on the 28th was the main event. This event was driven by a classic severe weather pattern with a strong fast moving jet stream and a deep surface cyclone over the central plains. These features helped to produce strong wind shear in the atmosphere which in turn combined with rich gulf moisture and setup a volatile atmospheric mix. Multiple supercell thunderstorms developed during the afternoon/evening and produced many instances of damaging wind and large hail along with multiple tornadoes. The most devastating tornado was the EF-4 which tore a path across NE Leake, the corners of Attala/Neshoba counties, and through the heart of Winston County where the city of Louisville was especially hard hit. This tornado was on ground for 34.3 miles and resulted in 10 fatalities and many injuries. Other hard hit counties were Lowndes, Rankin, Hinds, Scott, Newton, Montgomery, Warren and Jones. Each of these counties experienced at least one tornado, some multiple tornadoes. Overall, 21 tornadoes were confirmed across the forecast area. Of these tornadoes, 3 were rated EF-3, 3 rated EF-2, 12 rated EF1 and 2 rated EF-0.

This tornado touched down in the Standing Pine community. It destroyed a chicken house and damaged three others. Two sheds were also destroyed and the roof of a mobile homes was damaged. Numerous trees were also downed along the path. Maximum winds were around 110 mph.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:39 UTC and running to 02:00 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 High Risk, with a 0.30 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:20 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.

The Jackson/Brandon,MS radar (KDGX), 72 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:10 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 2014 tornado in MississippiEvery tornado in Mississippi since 1950Warnings in force in Mississippi nowThe forecast where you are

52 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.