EF1 tornado, Trinity to Columbus, Mississippi, November 29, 2016

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

November 29, 2016

Touchdown

8:12 PM CST (02:12 UTC)

Lifted

8:19 PM CST (02:19 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

3.5 miles (5.6 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Lowndes County

Touchdown point

33.404, -88.481

Lift-off point

33.445, -88.446

Record number

1611292012-01

5 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.

• Estimated start point via storm survey team
• Numerous trees snapped along a path through a farm. Overturned pivot and destroyed dear stand.
• Numerous cypress trees snapped.
• Few trees snapped and uprooted.

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

Two separate bouts of severe weather impacted a large portion of the ArkLaMiss region over a two day period in late November. The first event began on the afternoon of Monday, November 28th and ended around midnight on Tuesday, November 29th . A potent upper level low pressure system spinning over the Northern Plains caused a strong surface low pressure system to develop and rapidly race northeast from the Central Plains to the Great Lakes region. This resulted in a strong cold front racing east into and through the ArkLaMiss region. As it did so, it encountered a strongly wind-sheared and marginally unstable air mass over the area. This equated to a line of storms racing east across the ArkLaMiss, that downed numerous trees and powerlines across the area. Numerous trees were also reported down well ahead of the front due to widespread sustained gradient winds between 25-35 mph, gusting between 40-50 mph at times over the ArkLaMiss. After this cold front pushed through the region, it stalled near the central gulf coast Tuesday morning, aiding in setting the stage for the second bout of severe weather that would affect the region from Tuesday afternoon into the early morning hours of Wednesday, November 30th.||Another piece of upper level energy associated with the low pressure system aloft over the Northern Plains, approached the Southeast United States Tuesday afternoon. As this happened, it caused the front stalled south of the area to begin lifting north through the area as a warm front. As warm moist unstable air overspread the region from the south, both wind shear and forcing over the region became adequate, such that supercell thunderstorms began developing and moving northeast through the area. Numerous storms became severe and produced damaging wind gusts and large hail, primarily ranging from quarter to golfball size. Hen egg size hail was reported in Leake County, while baseball size hail was reported from storms in Sunflower and Neshoba counties. A total of five tornadoes were also confirmed with supercells across the ArkLaMiss. All five of these tornadoes were rated EF1, with one such tornado cutting a 23.6 mile damage path from NE Rankin County through Scott & Leake counties. Another tornado affected Winston and Noxubee counties. Three more tornado damage paths were found in Oktibbeha, Clay, and Lowndes counties.||As a cold front finally pushed east and through the ArkLaMiss early Wednesday morning, severe weather finally came to an end across the entire area around sunrise.

This tornado traveled north northeast just southwest of Columbus for a distance of 3.5 miles, mostly doing minor to moderate tree damage. One farm pivot was heavily damaged near the intersection of Limerock Road and Sally Freeman Road. The maximum estimated winds were 105mph.

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

30 minutes of warning. NWS JAN issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:42 UTC, 30 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:24 UTC and running to 02:51 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 00:51 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.

Golden Tri(Awos) (GTR), 12 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Columbus AFB radar (KGWX), 54 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:09 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 2016 tornado in MississippiEvery tornado in Mississippi since 1950Warnings in force in Mississippi nowThe forecast where you are

21 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.