EF3 tornado, Whistler to Matherville, Mississippi, February 12, 2025

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 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF3

Date

February 12, 2025

Touchdown

7:43 PM CST (01:43 UTC)

Lifted

8:16 PM CST (02:16 UTC)

On the ground

33 minutes

Path length

27.5 miles (44.2 km)

Path width

910 yards (832 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

2

County

Wayne County

Touchdown point

31.677, -88.931

Lift-off point

31.866, -88.519

Record number

2502121943-01

232 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS JAN and NWS MOB, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF3. The highest wind the damage implies is 160 mph.

• Section of forest completely destroyed with a mixture of softwood trees snapped or uprooted visible on Worldview satellite imagery.
• portions of roofing material and awning removed
• Shingles missing, small gazebo knocked down
• A few snaps of smaller and dead pines.

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

On the evening of February 12th, a tornado event unfolded across parts of southeast Mississippi and southwest Alabama. Two tornadoes occurred within the NWS Mobile/Pensacola area: an EF-3 tornado that tracked across much of northern Wayne County in Mississippi and an EF-2 tornado that moved through far eastern Washington County into Clarke County in Alabama. The EF-3 tornado in Wayne County was the strongest to affect the area since 1988.

A powerful EF3 tornado occurred across Wayne County on the evening of February 12th. The tornado first touched down west of Pine Lane Ranch Road as an EF0 doing minor tree and structural damage. The tornado continued northeast, gradually widening and intensifying to EF1 intensity by the time it reached Highway 84. It then crossed Highway 84 as an EF1 snapping and uprooting multiple trees and continuing minor structural damage. Once the tornado crossed Van Hoover West Road, it destroyed the adjacent chicken houses while also continuing to do EF1 tree damage in the form of snaps and uproots. The next area that was surveyed was along Eucutta Road and Bunk Butler Road. Here the tornado widened substantially to a peak width of 900 yards. Likewise, the tornado intensified significantly to EF3 intensity with peak winds around 150mph. Along Eucutta Road, multiple vortices were evident in emergency management provided drone imagery with several convergent damage tracks. In the most intense vortices, substantial tree and structural damage occurred. On Eucutta Road, a hardwood tree was completely stubbed with only the stubs of the largest branches remaining and at least 3 exterior walls of a home failed with anchor bolts off of Eucutta Road and Bunk Butler Road. As the tornado continued northeast it became quite intense resulting in near 100% deforestation in a quarter mile wide swath with all trees snapped low along with tree debarking and continued major structural damage. A recently constructed double wide home was completely removed from the property with the frame separated into multiple pieces and thrown roughly 100 to 300+ yards down track and deposited 20 to 30 feet up into the trees. Trees in the open field to the east were not only snapped but completely removed from their point of origin, likely deposited hundreds of yards north into the adjacent forest that was wiped out. EF3 magnitude forest damage with near 100% deforestation and debarking continued east through the north stretch of Bunk Butler Road. A barn, single wide, and double wide structure were completely destroyed and removed prior to the tornado crossing Bunk Butler Road for the second time. Some ground scouring was also noted here. Large metal supports from the double wide were scattered around and twisted, lifted and moved by about 150-200 yards from its origin. Two cattle trailers, an RV, and a pickup truck were tossed with the RV rolled about 50 yards. The tornado continued northeast across Bunk Butler Road once again and Leonard Street Road maintaining EF2 to EF3 magnitude tree and structural damage. The tornado gradually weakened to high end EF2 intensity as it moved across Beat 4 Shubuta Road nearly completely eradicating the forest and causing significant damage to homes, shifting a double wide home off its foundation and rotating it 45 degrees and removing 50% of the roof from another well-built home. After review of high-resolution satellite imagery some modifications to the tornado were made, particularly to locations along and northeast of Highway 45 in Wayne County. The first spot is near the river on the west side of Highway 45 in the vicinity of the railroad where EF2 tree damage occurred with numerous snaps and uproots of softwood trees. Further northeast the tornado varied in intensity. The tornado experienced a second peak in intensity along and just northeast of Pleasant Grove Chapparal Road where several sub-vortices within the parent tornado vortex caused extraordinary tree damage with near 100% deforestation of softwood forests in about a 250-yard-wide swath and notable tree damage in a 350-yard-wide swath. This secondary peak stretched about 2.5 miles in length over mostly densely forested regions. The tornado gradually shrunk in size and weakened back to EF1 intensity as it continued northeast. The threshold of visible forest damage could be seen east of John Allen Road, with the tornado likely lifting just prior to reaching Coyt Road where any visible damage becomes indistinguishable. The NWS Mobile would like to give a special thanks to NWS Jackson for assisting with this storm survey in addition to the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency for providing drone imagery of the hardest hit areas.

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

NWS Mobile, AL wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at Feb 12, 5:41 PM CST, 2 hours 2 minutes earlier.

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Mobile AL
541 PM CST Wed Feb 12 2025

...NEW MESOSCALE AND AVIATION UPDATE...

.UPDATE...
Issued at 539 PM CST Wed Feb 12 2025

There will be a corridor of severe weather that continues through
this evening along and south of a warm front that has been
convectively modified but roughly extends from central Perry
county in southeast Mississippi northeast through northern
Washington, northern Clarke, and west central Wilcox counties as
of 4:45pm. This front will attempt to lift slowly northward with
time, but be augmented back south in segments where storm scale
outflows from storms push southeastward. This front separates a
very warm and moist airmass with mid to upper 70s temperatures and
near 70 degree dewpoints. Just north of the front the near surface
airmass remains quite stable with lower 60s dewpoints and
temperatures.

Along the warm front, enhanced vorticity pooling along with
enhanced low level stretching will raise the potential for
tornadoes in the vicinity of the boundary. This will be the area
where the tornado threat will be greatest. At this time, many of
the storms increase rotation near the boundary but have been quick
to cross north and become elevated. In areas where the boundary
has become convectively modified and oriented increasingly
northeast to southwest there will be a potential for supercells to
become latched on to the front and support longer lived supercells
with more persistent rotation and relatively higher potential for
more persistent tornado threat. This will be highly mesoscale
driven and we will provide updates via social media and chat to
locally highlight these areas and threats as they become apparent
through the evening.

Further south, there are a few mini supercells embedded within the
warm sector. These storms have struggled to maintain persistent
strong mesocyclones with a relatively lower overall tornado
threat. High wet bulb zeros along with relatively strong storm
relative inflow will more likely require the need for storm
nudgers to enhance the storm rear flow downdrafts (RFDs) to allow
for improved balance with the strong storm inflow. This would
support a locally enhanced tornado threat with mini supercells
within the warm sector.

Further to the west, surface winds have veered which is supporting
an increasingly linear storm modes with a few lines of storms
along both a prefrontal surface trough and the actual cold front.
A 1003 mb surface low near KJAN will continue to slowly lift
northeast through the night. Surface winds south and east of this
low remain sufficiently backed with continued enhanced storm
relative helicity and sufficient instability, especially packed in
the lowest few kilometers of the atmosphere. Therefore, expecting
the threat for tornadoes to continue through the night with the
greatest focus near the warm front and across northern portions of
our forecast area. Also, a stronger tornado cannot be ruled out
but will remain a more isolated threat as strong shear continues
to overlap the stronger low level instability especially with
supercells latched to the warm front. The only limiting factor for
strong tornadoes is the relative weak mid level height falls. The
threat west of I-65 should persist through around midnight. As
storms move east of I-65 after midnight, storms should gradually
weaken as the upper trough begins to lift out to the northeast. We
will continue to monitor the threat through the evening and
provide additional updates as needed. /JLH

&&

.AVIATION...
(00Z TAFS)
Issued at 539 PM CST Wed Feb 12 2025

MVFR ceilings will drop to IFR tonight as a line of strong to severe
thunderstorms moves in from the west along an approaching cold
front. Low level wind shear will be present at around 40 knots at
2kft out of the southwest this evening, along with the potential
isolated damaging winds and potentially a tornado or two. Storms
will progress slowly from west to east overnight, resulting in in
reduced visibility's, gusty winds and IFR to VLIFR ceilings.
Southerly surface winds of 10 to 15 knots with frequent gusts to
around 25 knots will shift northerly late this evening through the
overnight hours in the wake of the cold front. /22

&&

.PRELIMINARY POINT TEMPS/POPS...
Mobile      53  67  42  65  56  77  57  64 / 100  20   0  10  20  20  90  30
Pensacola   61  70  47  65  59  73  63  67 /  90  60   0  10  20  20  90  50
Destin      63  73  49  68  60  73  64  69 /  90  80   0  20  10  20  80  70
Evergreen   53  65  38  65  51  77  56  62 /  90  30   0  10  20  10 100  40
Waynesboro  46  60  36  65  50  78  49  58 / 100   0   0  10  30  30 100  20
Camden      47  59  35  63  48  75  51  60 / 100  10   0  10  30  20 100  40
Crestview   60  72  42  68  53  76  61  67 / 100  70   0  10  10  10  90  60

&&

.MOB WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
AL...High Rip Current Risk through late Thursday night for ALZ265-266.

     High Surf Advisory until noon CST Thursday for ALZ265-266.

FL...High Rip Current Risk through late Thursday night for FLZ202-204-
     206.

     High Surf Advisory until noon CST Thursday for FLZ202-204-206.

MS...None.
GM...Small Craft Advisory until 9 AM CST Friday for GMZ630>632.

     Small Craft Advisory until noon CST Friday for GMZ650-655-670-
     675.

&&

This product is also available on the web at:
www.weather.gov/mob

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.

Laurel (LUL), 44 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Mobile radar (KMOB), 130 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:42 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.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2025 tornado in MississippiEvery tornado in Mississippi since 1950Warnings in force in Mississippi nowThe forecast where you are

3 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.