EF0 tornado, Braxton to Martinville, Mississippi, December 9, 2023

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

December 9, 2023

Touchdown

9:18 PM CST (03:18 UTC)

Lifted

9:35 PM CST (03:35 UTC)

On the ground

17 minutes

Path length

13.9 miles (22.4 km)

Path width

350 yards (320 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$30,000

Counties

Simpson and Rankin counties

Touchdown point

32.045, -89.986

Lift-off point

32.030, -89.750

Record number

2312092118-01

7 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS JAN, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 75 mph.

• Small pine down. Few larger branches down
• Cedar blown into power lines.
• Couple weaker pines downed. One down on a home.
• Weak pine and larger branches down

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

As a low pressure system moved through the Upper Midwest region, its cold front which stretched to the south through the Lower Mississippi River Valley became the focus for thunderstorm development on the afternoon of December 9th. Initially discrete supercell storms produced wind damage and hail as they moved into northern Mississippi, and these supercells eventually grew upscale into a squall line of nearly continuous storms as the cold front pushed farther southeast into Mississippi. A few severe storms developed in advance of the cold front during the afternoon and early evening and also produced wind damage and hail.

An EF-0 tornado produced intermittent damage to trees and vegetation along a path extending from just north of Braxton to south of Puckett. The tornado tracked along the Rankin and Simpson county line. It briefly crossed into far southern Rankin County near Charlie Dixon Road, turned east-southeast, and crossed back into Simpson County near Cato Road where a tree was blown. A cedar tree south of Puckett was blown down onto power lines as the tornado dissipated near MS Highway 541. Maximum winds were estimated to be 80 mph, with a total path length of 14 miles across the two counties.

An EF-0 tornado produced intermittent damage to trees and vegetation along a path extending from just north of Braxton to south of Puckett. The tornado tracked along the Rankin and Simpson county line. It briefly crossed into far southern Rankin County near Charlie Dixon Road, turned east-southeast, and crossed back into Simpson County near Cato Road where a tree was blown. A cedar tree south of Puckett was blown down onto power lines as the tornado dissipated near MS Highway 541. Maximum winds were estimated to be 80 mph, with a total path length of 14 miles across the two counties.

An EF-0 tornado produced intermittent damage to trees and vegetation along a path extending from just north of Braxton to south of Puckett. The tornado tracked along the Rankin and Simpson county line. It briefly crossed into far southern Rankin County near Charlie Dixon Road, turned east-southeast, and crossed back into Simpson County near Cato Road where a tree was blown. A cedar tree south of Puckett was blown down onto power lines as the tornado dissipated near MS Highway 541. Maximum winds were estimated to be 80 mph, with a total path length of 14 miles across the two counties.

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 21:57 UTC and running to 06:00 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 00:59 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), 29 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:17 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 2023 tornado in MississippiEvery tornado in Mississippi since 1950Warnings in force in Mississippi nowThe forecast where you are

11 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.