EF0 tornado, Baxterville to Tatums Camps, Mississippi, March 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

March 30, 2017

Touchdown

5:32 AM CDT (10:32 UTC)

Lifted

5:34 AM CDT (10:34 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

1.1 miles (1.7 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$95,000

County

Lamar County

Touchdown point

31.146, -89.597

Lift-off point

31.152, -89.581

Record number

1703300432-01

3 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 73 mph.

• Uprooted trees. End point.

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

A line of severe thunderstorms developed over Louisiana late in the evening on March 29th and quickly moved into Mississippi. These thunderstorms produced widespread severe wind gusts which blew down trees and caused damage to homes and other structures. A brief tornado developed near Purvis. A wake low developed as the thunderstorms weakened during the morning of March 30th, and widespread high winds blew down trees and caused damage across east-central Mississippi.

A weak and brief tornado touched down just west of Tatum Salt Dome Road and tracked east-northeast for about one and a half miles. As it crossed Tatum Salt Dome Road, property was damaged on both sides. Damage was mainly in the form of metal roofs being blown off of three sheds and a barn destroyed. A mobile home also had a large section of the metal roof blown off. Three instances of this roof damage, the tin was blown to the northwest, indicating rotation from a weak tornado. Additionally, many large limbs were broken along the path with a dozen or more trees uprooted across the property east of Tatum Salt Dome Road. Maximum wind gusts were estimated to be 75 mph based on the surveyed damage.

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.

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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 06:01 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.

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

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.