EF1 tornado, Ocean Spgs to Helena, Mississippi, November 1, 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

November 1, 2018

Touchdown

6:40 AM CDT (11:40 UTC)

Lifted

6:45 AM CDT (11:45 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

4.8 miles (7.7 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Jackson County

Touchdown point

30.472, -88.569

Lift-off point

30.500, -88.496

Record number

1811010540-01

44 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LIX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 107 mph.

• Large tree snapped near ground. Too far removed from other observed damage to be part of the tornado rotation.
• Pine tree snapped well above the ground.
• Shingle damage to home. Also numerous hard and soft wood tree limbs down along Ashland. A couple small softwood trees snapped east of this location on Ashland.
• Medium sized pine tree snapped. Also large branch snapped from hard wood tree. No apparent damage to home.

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

Deepening low pressure moving through the Lower Mississippi River Valley into the Ohio River Valley pushed a cold front through southeast Louisiana and southern Mississippi on the 1st. Severe thunderstorms developed in advance of the front, producing numerous reports of severe weather, including several tornadoes.

An EF-1 tornado touched down along Government Street near Whitney Oaks Drive. As it moved northeast, it downed 2 wooden power poles and 3 small traffic warning lights on Highway 90 in front of the Ocean Springs Police and Fire Departments. As it continued to move northeast, it damaged several cars and broke 7 windows at a large retail store. It snapped several more trees in the Parktown East subdivision behind the store, and also caused minor structural damage, mainly to shingles and fascia of homes. The storm continue to move eastward and lifted just northeast of Tapp Road. Estimated peak wind was 105 mph, path length 3.2 miles, path width 100 yards.

An EF-1 tornado touched down over the Pascagoula River and caused damage as it moved across Riverlodge Drive, where it tore the porch roof off of one home and also caused minor roof damage on two adjacent homes. As it moved northeast, it snapped numerous hard and soft wood trees and caused minor structural damage to a few homes. It also caused roof and fascia damage to the Four Mile Creek Baptist Church. The tornado continued to cause tree damage and minor structural damage to homes as it moved through the Wildwood area, before lifting as it crossed Black Creek.

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 04:09 UTC and running to 12:46 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 06:00 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 Mobile radar (KMOB), 35 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 11:42 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

34 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.