EF0 tornado, Biloxi, Mississippi, August 30, 2021

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

August 30, 2021

Touchdown

5:55 AM CDT (10:55 UTC)

Lifted

5:56 AM CDT (10:56 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.5 miles (0.9 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Harrison County

Touchdown point

30.397, -88.879

Lift-off point

30.404, -88.879

Record number

2108300455-01

81 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LIX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 85 mph.

• Large hardoowd uprooted into two homes. Numerous snapped large limbs limbs in the area.
• Continued snapped large branches with one partially snapped softwood pine. Given surrounding tree damage went with large hardwood branches snapped as DI.
• Area of snapped hardwood and softwood limbs. Likely start of the tornado. Limbs are on the 1-2 inch diameter thus lower bound.
• Large branches broken with some minor roof damage. Likely end of path

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

The ninth named storm, fourth hurricane, and second major hurricane of the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season, Ida originated from a tropical wave in the Caribbean Sea on August 23rd. On August 26th, the wave developed into a tropical depression, which organized further and became Tropical Storm Ida later that day, near Grand Cayman. On a northwestward track, Ida intensified into a hurricane on August 27, just before moving over western Cuba. A day later, the hurricane underwent rapid intensification over the Gulf of Mexico as it passed over a warm core eddy and reached major hurricane strength. It was just under 72 hours from tropical depression formation to category 4 strength with 150 mph winds. Ida remained at its peak intensity of 150 mph winds and a minimum central pressure of 929 millibars as it made landfall near Port Fourchon midday on August 29th. It didn���t weaken to a tropical storm until it reached near the Louisiana/Mississippi border.||Ida produced over a dozen tornadoes and light to moderate wind damage across southwestern and coastal Mississippi. Around 100,000 residents were without power. Around 100 homes were damaged, 6 destroyed. Storm surge inundation ranged from a few feet in Jackson County to 7 feet in Harrison County. Hurricane Ida caused approximately $10 million worth of damage.

A brief tornado tracked north for approximately a half mile in Biloxi, downing trees and snapping large branches, and causing roof damage to several homes along Howard Ave., Peyton Dr., Keller Ave., and Esters Blvd. Roof damage to a small office complex at the corner of Division St. and Keller Ave. and several nearby houses was also noted. Survey conducted remotely via high-res aerial photography.

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 23:50 UTC and running to 11:00 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 05:39 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.

Keesler Afb/Biloxi (BIX), 5 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Mobile radar (KMOB), 69 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 10:56 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 2021 tornado in MississippiEvery tornado in Mississippi since 1950Warnings in force in Mississippi nowThe forecast where you are

10 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.