Tornadoes · United States · Mississippi · 2016
EF1 tornado, Loyd, Mississippi, December 17, 2016
This EF1 tornado ran 0.3 miles across Calhoun County on December 17, 2016, touching down at 11:45 PM CST and reaching 75 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $80,000 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.
EF065 to 85 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- EF1
- Date
- December 17, 2016
- Touchdown
- 11:45 PM CST (05:45 UTC)
- Lifted
- 11:46 PM CST (05:46 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.3 miles (0.6 km)
- Path width
- 75 yards (69 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $80,000
- County
- Calhoun County
- Touchdown point
- 33.924, -89.223
- Lift-off point
- 33.924, -89.217
- Record number
- 1612172345-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A strong early winter storm system brought unseasonably warm temperatures to the Midsouth, triggering severe thunderstorms capable of producing weak tornadoes, large hail and wind damage.
Damage was primarily to private business with metal building and small trailers.
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.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 03:01 UTC and running to 07:11 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 03:01 UTC | 07:11 UTC | Tornado Watch | MEG |
| 05:25 UTC | 06:14 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | MEG |
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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 01:00 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.
Little Rock, AR (KBYH), 00:00Z
5.8 hours before the tornado, 121 km from the path. December 18, 2016.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 43 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -194 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 608 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 83 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 42 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 395 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 525 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 3.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.1 K/km
Little Rock, AR (KBYH), 12:00Z
6.2 hours after it, 121 km from the path. December 18, 2016.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -57305 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1085 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 92 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 29 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -362 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- -385 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- -2.0 K/km
The radar
The Columbus AFB radar (KGWX), 82 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 05:43 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) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 04:25 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 3 W Oxford | Lafayette, MS | DOWNED POWER LINES ON THE WEST SIDE OF OXFORD, IN FRONT OF GOOSE CREEK TENNIS CLUB. POSSIBLE TORNADO. TIME IS RADAR ESTIMATED. |
| 04:25 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 3 W Oxford | Lafayette, MS | DOWNED POWER LINES ON THE WEST SIDE OF OXFORD. POSSIBLE TORNADO. TIME IS RADAR ESTIMATED. |
| 05:15 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Coffeeville | Yalobusha, MS | TREES SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. |
| 05:15 UTC | TSTM WND GST 60 | 3 E Coffeeville | Yalobusha, MS | |
| 05:30 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | Pittsboro | Calhoun, MS | VISIBLE FUNNEL TO THE WEST. |
| 05:45 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 4 Nw Vardaman | Calhoun, MS | EMERGENCY MANAGER REPORTS AT LEAST THREE BUILDINGS ARE A TOTAL LOSS NEAR VARDAMAN MISSISSIPPI. |
| 06:00 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Pontotoc | Pontotoc, MS | TREES DOWN ON CAR NEAR HIGHWAY 9 AND CHERRY CREEK. |
| 06:30 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Woodland | Chickasaw, MS | LARGE TREE ON HOUSE IN WOODLAND. TIME IS RADAR ESTIMATED. |
| 06:45 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Woodland | Chickasaw, MS | LARGE TREE DOWN ON HOUSE IN WOODLAND. TIME IS RADAR ESTIMATED. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2016 tornado in MississippiEvery tornado in Mississippi since 1950Warnings in force in Mississippi nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of December 17, 2016
2 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| December 17 | 7:03 PM CST | EF1 | Grant, AR | 0.5 | 100 | $100,000 | ||
| December 17 | 11:37 PM CST | EF0 | Colbert, AL | 0.6 | 87 |
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.