EF1 tornado, Oak Grove to Okahola, Mississippi, March 30, 2022

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 30, 2022

Touchdown

7:44 PM CDT (00:44 UTC)

Lifted

7:47 PM CDT (00:47 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

1.9 miles (3.0 km)

Path width

425 yards (389 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$20,000

County

Lamar County

Touchdown point

31.265, -89.466

Lift-off point

31.278, -89.439

Record number

2203301844-01

21 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.

• Part of a gas station canopy was removed

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

A strong weather system interacted with an unstable airmass to bring widespread severe weather to the region. There was copious amounts of wind energy in the atmosphere ahead of the squall line to bring down trees and power lines from gradient winds. In addition, damaging winds and tornadoes occurred within the squall line as it moved through Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi.

A tornado touched down near the intersection of Hwy 589 and Ford Loop and moved northeast causing tree damage. Several branches and trunks were snapped along with some trees being uprooted. The tornado continued northeast crossing Travertine Drive, where it caused roof damage to a house in the surrounding neighborhood. The tornado continued through the intersection of Grand Blvd and Crestwick Drive, where more tree damage occurred and finally ended between Cameron Road and Summer Place. The maximum estimated wind speed of this tornado was 100 mph.

This weak tornado began on the east side of downtown Purvis near the intersection of US Highway 11 and MS Highway 589 where a portion of a gas station canopy was removed, minor tree damage occurred, and a sign was blown down. The tornado continued northeast downing trees and snapping large tree branches as it crossed US 11, Sherlock Herring Road, and Harold Tucker Road, E Hill Road, and White Chapel Road. On E Hill Road, a portion of a metal roof was blown off. The tornado lifted as it reached Interstate 59 in western Forrest County where additional minor tree damage was noted. The maximum estimated wind speed of this tornado was 85 mph. Total path length was 7.3 miles.

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

32 minutes of warning. NWS JAN issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:12 UTC, 32 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:55 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 21:30 UTC and running to 01:46 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:58 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), 123 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:46 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 2022 tornado in MississippiEvery tornado in Mississippi since 1950Warnings in force in Mississippi nowThe forecast where you are

80 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 81 of them

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.