EF1 tornado, Georgetown to Everett, Mississippi, December 28, 2024

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

December 28, 2024

Touchdown

7:17 PM CST (01:17 UTC)

Lifted

7:26 PM CST (01:26 UTC)

On the ground

9 minutes

Path length

10.5 miles (16.9 km)

Path width

800 yards (732 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$500,000

County

Simpson County

Touchdown point

31.938, -89.962

Lift-off point

31.997, -89.796

Record number

2412281917-01

83 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.

• Large limbs, weak tree down
• Brick fascade on church blown down
• Power pole snapped at crossbar.
• Several large trees intermittently snapped. Convergent

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

On December 28th, an outbreak of severe weather took place. Initially, a few isolated supercells storms developed and produced some tornadoes. As this occurred, a line of storms also developed and eventually pushed eastward across our region. Widespread damaging winds occurred with the line along with numerous tornadoes. This particular convective system was extremely efficient at producing tornadoes. This resulted in a record number of tornadoes for the month of December. The total across our forecast area was 43. The previous December record was 24 back in 2022.

This tornado began southeast of Hazlehurst and downed several trees as it moved across Great Southern Rd, Union Rd, Ashley Rd, and MS Highway 472. It then roughly paralleled Cooper Rd before entering Georgetown, where several homes sustained mainly minor roof damage and additional trees were downed. The tornado crossed the Pearl River into western Simpson County before it lifted near Old River Rd. Additional scattered wind damage occurred eastward of this location, but it was less focused until another tornado developed west of Mendenhall. The maximum wind speed was 105 mph.

This tornado began along Big Woods Rd where several trees were snapped and proceeded east northeastward resulting in additional tree damage and damaged multiple chicken houses along Jupiter Rd before it reached the city of Mendenhall. Several trees and utility lines were downed throughout the city, some fell on homes. Power poles were snapped. A shed was pushed over along Dixie Ave, the roofs were peeled from some buildings in the downtown area, and one roof was lofted into power lines along W Jackson Ave. The brick facade of a downtown church was blown down. East of the city, the tornado continued across US 49, Eugie Palmer Rd, Poplar Springs Rd, and Ponder Mason Rd, before it lifted around Everett Church Rd. Along the path there were multiple distinct focused damage areas, suggesting this might have been a series of smaller tornadoes, which resulted in damage over a somewhat wider area. The maximum wind speed was 105 mph.

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

19 minutes of warning. NWS JAN issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:58 UTC, 19 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 21:26 UTC and running to 02:16 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 00:58 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.

Jackson/Thompson (JAN), 44 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Jackson/Brandon,MS radar (KDGX), 36 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:17 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 2024 tornado in MississippiEvery tornado in Mississippi since 1950Warnings in force in Mississippi nowThe forecast where you are

76 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 77 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.