EF1 tornado, Baxterville to Tatums Camps, Mississippi, April 14, 2018

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 14, 2018

Touchdown

10:07 AM CDT (15:07 UTC)

Lifted

10:15 AM CDT (15:15 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

6.1 miles (9.8 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$15,000

County

Lamar County

Touchdown point

31.164, -89.632

Lift-off point

31.212, -89.546

Record number

1804140907-01

1 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 95 mph.

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

During the evening hours of Friday, April 13th, scattered supercells developed across northeast Louisiana within the broad warm sector of a strong surface cyclone centered near the Kansas/Nebraska border. These storms exhibited rotation almost immediately, and began producing tornadoes across northern Louisiana. Two tornadoes occurred in the NWS Jackson forecast area in association with a cell that tracked from near Rayville, LA north northeastward along the Boeuf River. These storms also produced strong wind as they continued into southeast Arkansas. Overnight, as the cold front associated with the storm system began to advance eastward, a quasi-linear convective system developed over the ArkLaTex and advanced eastward. These storms reached the western portion of the NWS Jackson forecast area after 2:30 am on Saturday, April 14th. Six tornadoes occurred during the early morning hours across southeast Arkansas and northeast Louisiana in association with this line of storms. The storms continued to produce damaging straight-line winds, knocking down trees and power lines in many areas, through the morning hours as it continued eastward into Mississippi. A few additional tornadoes also developed along the line, including one in Flowood, one near Noxapater, one in western Lamar County, and an EF2 tornado in Meridian.

The tornado began near Johnson Road and Luther Saucier Road, snapping a few softwood trees and uprooting some hardwood trees. It then continued northeast, causing tree damage across Caney Church Road and Purvis to Columbia Road. It then crossed near the south and east side of Big Bay Lake, once again causing sporadic tree damage. The tornado lifted near Purvis Oloh Road. Maximum estimated wind speed was 95 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 12:27 UTC and running to 17:41 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 12:44 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.

Columbia (0R0), 24 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

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 2018 tornado in MississippiEvery tornado in Mississippi since 1950Warnings in force in Mississippi nowThe forecast where you are

38 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.