EF1 tornado, Coxburg to Ebenezer, Mississippi, May 2, 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

May 2, 2021

Touchdown

5:53 PM CDT (22:53 UTC)

Lifted

6:11 PM CDT (23:11 UTC)

On the ground

18 minutes

Path length

10.6 miles (17.1 km)

Path width

450 yards (411 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$40,000

County

Holmes County

Touchdown point

33.006, -90.250

Lift-off point

33.143, -90.165

Record number

2105021653-01

65 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS JAN, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 115 mph.

• Business with roof and garage damage
• Tree on home, roof damage, shed destroyed, heavy tree damage where nearly all trees in center of path damaged

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

An upper-level shortwave trough moved from East Texas across Arkansas during the afternoon of May 2nd. At the surface, a warm front associated with the system developed and lifted north across Mississippi. Severe thunderstorms developed along and south of the warm front through the afternoon and evening, producing several tornadoes and scattered wind damage extending from the southwestern and west-central Mississippi toward north-central and northeastern portions of the state.

An EF-1 tornado touched down just south of Yellow Bluff Road and moved north-northeast, damaging and snapping trees along its path. The tornado crossed Thornton-Tolarsville Road where heavy tree damage was noted, and one mobile home had some of the roof blown off. In this section is where the tornado peaked with an estimated intensity of 110 mph winds. The tornado continued over mostly wooded area and crossed Queenie M. Johnson Road where it weakened and narrowed before dissipating after crossing Howard Road.

This EF2 tornado touched down in the Acona Community near the intersection of Highway 17 and Holly Grove Rd. Multiple trees were uprooted along Highway 17 with many others damaged. The tornado crossed Henderson Rd, where more trees were downed and a power line was down. The tornado moved through a wooded area west of the highway before crossing it just on the south side of the Carroll County line. This area is where the tornado reached peak intensity with max winds around 115 mph. Extensive tree damaged was noted west of the highway on some personal property. Here, a home was damaged as well with a tree on a part of it and moderate roof damage. A part of a high tension line was down due to a tree. Extensive tree damage was noted as the tornado crossed Highway 17. After entering Carroll County, the tornado weakened as it crossed New Zion Rd and then dissipated right at Highway 430. |The total path length was 5.95 miles across the two counties.

The supercell that produced the Satartia/Yazoo City tornado produced another weak tornado that began along Saxton Rd near the Midway community. Mainly tree and tree limb damage occurred along the path of this tornado, which moved northeastward briefly paralleling MS Highway 433 near the Zeiglerville community, before crossing into Holmes County and ending west of Ebenezer along Ebenezer Coxburg Rd. The total path length was 8.26 miles across the two counties. Peak winds in Holmes County were estimated to be 85 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 21:46 UTC and running to 01:59 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 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), 91 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:55 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

26 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.