EF0 tornado, Piketown, Mississippi, April 30, 2017

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.

Rating

EF0

Date

April 30, 2017

Touchdown

9:41 AM CDT (14:41 UTC)

Lifted

9:47 AM CDT (14:47 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

4.3 miles (6.9 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Scott County

Touchdown point

32.407, -89.397

Lift-off point

32.468, -89.381

Record number

1704300841-01

6 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS JAN, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 80 mph.

• Trees uprooted. Minor roof damage and skirting off of mobile home.

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

During the early morning hours of April 30th, a squall line of severe thunderstorms developed across central Louisiana and pushed eastward across the ArkLaMiss. The line intensified as it approached the Mississippi River and caused wind damage and tornadoes. As the convective system evolved into Mississippi, numerous tornadoes developed along the advancing line, with the most prolific damage occurring along the track of a large meso-scale convective vortex (MCV). This feature tracked roughly from Claiborne County through western Hinds/Madison, eastern Yazoo, eastern Holmes, southeastern Carroll, Montgomery, and northwestern Webster counties. This corridor is where the most significant damage occurred, as well as one fatality. Flash flooding, hail, and other wind damage occurred as these storms moved through.

The tornado began along Russell Community Road where it uprooted many softwood trees. It also caused minor roof damage and blew the skirting off of a mobile home, as well as blew the tin off of a chicken house. It then continued to the north-northeast and uprooted more trees along Jane Road before it dissipated. The maximum estimated wind speed was 80 mph.

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 14:18 UTC, 23 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 15:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 12:34 UTC and running to 18:19 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 13:00 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 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), 59 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 14:40 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 2017 tornado in MississippiEvery tornado in Mississippi since 1950Warnings in force in Mississippi nowThe forecast where you are

42 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.