EF0 tornado, Flora Lane Arpt to Richton, Mississippi, March 11, 2018

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 11, 2018

Touchdown

1:49 AM CST (07:49 UTC)

Lifted

1:57 AM CST (07:57 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

6.1 miles (9.8 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$35,000

County

Madison County

Touchdown point

32.600, -90.267

Lift-off point

32.557, -90.174

Record number

1803110149-01

14 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 90 mph.

• tree on a shed, roof removed.
• trees down, shingles off roof
• partial roof down as columns fell; trees down
• dmg to mobile home, part of roofing material off old school building

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

Showers and thunderstorms moved across the ArkLaMiss region during the evening of March 10th into the early morning hours of March 11th. These came ahead of a cold front and intensifying low pressure system. Large hail occurred with these storms, especially in the ArkLaMiss Delta region, but wind damage also occurred into central Mississippi.

The tornado touched down northeast of Flora near Perkinson Road and continued a southeast track toward Middleton and Battmore roads, where minor tree damage occurred. Tree damage was also observed near Stokes Road and again near Highway 22 near Persimmon Creek. More tree damage was noted near McMillan Road. The tornado lifted as it approached Lake Caroline. The maximum winds were 75mph. It should be noted that this tornado occurred just before the shift from Central Standard Time (CST) to Central Daylight Time (CDT).

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 severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 02:33 UTC and running to 10:00 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 06:02 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), 40 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 07:48 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 2018 tornado in MississippiEvery tornado in Mississippi since 1950Warnings in force in Mississippi nowThe forecast where you are

2 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.