EF1 tornado, Gunn to Pineville, Mississippi, June 18, 2023

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

June 18, 2023

Touchdown

10:52 PM CDT (03:52 UTC)

Lifted

11:01 PM CDT (04:01 UTC)

On the ground

9 minutes

Path length

2.5 miles (4.0 km)

Path width

400 yards (366 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$75,000

County

Smith County

Touchdown point

32.092, -89.410

Lift-off point

32.114, -89.378

Record number

2306182152-01

88 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS JAN, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF3. The highest wind the damage implies is 150 mph.

• Minor roof damage to metal building roof
• A set of double wooden transmission lines down
• Four chicken houses destroyed. Went high end of DoD based on surrounding context.

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 moving east through the Central Plains initiated a few clusters of thunderstorms that spread into Mississippi during the morning of June 18th. With an unstable air mass and strong jet stream over the region, these storms became severe and produced hail and damaging wind through the morning. An additional round of severe storms developed during the evening of the 18th and into the morning of the 19th. This even resulted in a rare June tornado outbreak. The previous record for number of June tornadoes in the state of Mississippi was 7 in 1974. A total of 15 tornadoes occurred across the state from June 18-19, 2023 - making this event a record in its own right. The tornado which occurred near Louin, MS was the first F3 or EF-3 rated tornado in the state since 1957.

An EF-0 tornado touched down along National Forest Road 521-A where it damaged several trees as it moved north into the woods. It quickly dissipated before meeting the loop of the road to the north. Estimated maximum wind speeds were 80 mph.

An EF-0 tornado touched down along MS Highway 18 just west of Raleigh and dissipated at Highway 35 a few miles north of Raleigh. It broke tree limbs and blew down a couple of trees along its path. Estimated maximum wind speeds were 80 mph.

An EF-1 tornado touched down along Smith County Road 501-2 and dissipated just after it crossed Smith County Road 529. The most intense damage was along MS Highway 501 where numerous trees were damaged and some minor damage occurred to a couple of homes. Multiple power lines were also blown down. Maximum estimated winds were 105 mph.

A second EF-1 developed a few minutes after the previous tornado in this area. This one touched down along MS Highway 501 where a few tree limbs were blown down. It intensified and damaged more trees as it crossed Sang Bender Road and Smith County Road 529 and turned northward. The tornado dissipated at Smith County Road 504. Estimated maximum wind speeds were 90 mph.

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

54 minutes of warning. NWS JAN issued a tornado warning for this county at 02:58 UTC, 54 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 04:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 00:12 UTC and running to 05:57 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 01:09 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), 59 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:49 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

20 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.