EF1 tornado, Toomsuba to Smith, Mississippi, May 4, 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 4, 2021

Touchdown

4:08 PM CDT (21:08 UTC)

Lifted

4:12 PM CDT (21:12 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

3.5 miles (5.6 km)

Path width

450 yards (411 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$55,000

County

Lauderdale County

Touchdown point

32.410, -88.522

Lift-off point

32.430, -88.468

Record number

2105041508-01

29 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 105 mph.

• 2 houses with shingle damage
• Shingles and siding damage

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

An outbreak of severe thunderstorms occurred on May 4th. An initial round of supercell thunderstorms that morning brought several brief tornadoes to the area along with a few instances of damaging winds. The main round of storms occurred during the afternoon in the form of an intense line of storms. Widespread wind damage occurred with embedded swaths of significant damaging winds up to 80 mph. This resulted in numerous downed trees, power lines and infrastructure damage. Seven tornadoes also occurred within the squall line.

This tornado began along I-20/59 just west of the Toomsuba exit, downing large tree branches and uprooting or snapping a few trees as it crossed the interstate and then Will Garrett Road. It then continued across Melvin Swain Road and US 11/80, where the percentage of downed trees and the width of the path increased. Similar damage continued along Dixie Highway Road, Butts Road, and Prisock Road, where a barn had metal panels removed from the roof, a couple of houses had siding damage, and considerable tree damage continued. The tornadic circulation broadened and weakened beyond this point, with the tornado lifting near J O Thomas Road. However, straight line winds continued to down several trees over a wider area downstream around Kewanee and the I-20/59 rest areas. Maximum estimated winds were 105 miles per hour.

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.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:32 UTC and running to 21:35 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:49 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), 141 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:05 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

38 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.