EF1 tornado, Sandhill, Mississippi, March 16, 2021

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

March 16, 2021

Touchdown

7:03 PM CDT (00:03 UTC)

Lifted

7:06 PM CDT (00:06 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

1.4 miles (2.2 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$12,000

County

Copiah County

Touchdown point

31.761, -90.349

Lift-off point

31.765, -90.326

Record number

2103161803-01

19 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 100 mph.

• Many limbs snapped, a few tops out of trees and power lines down.
• Several trees snapped and other uprooted, tops broken out of trees as well. Power lines down along Ryan Rd.
• Several trees uprooted and snapped
• Half the roof off wood frame home

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

A stalled front, combined with a warm and moist airmass, led to the development of showers and thunderstorms across the region. With high atmospheric moisture present, flash flooding occurred across portions of south and central Mississippi. As daytime heating occurred, some storms were able to become severe which resulted in damaging winds and large hail.

This brief tornado started at Martinsville Road and tracked east northeast for just over a mile. It also moved along a portion of Ryan Road. Damage was mainly snapped trees, uprooted trees and many limbs broken. Some power lines were down as well. High resolution satellite imagery showed additional tree damage occurring to the east of these points, to the north of Ryan Road and west of Deason Road. The tornado is believed to have lifted before reaching Deason Road. The maximum estimated winds were 100 mph.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

2 minutes of warning. NWS JAN issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:01 UTC, 2 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:32 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 Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:43 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), 66 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:02 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

1 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.