EF1 tornado, Cohay, Mississippi, January 5, 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 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

January 5, 2025

Touchdown

8:52 PM CST (02:52 UTC)

Lifted

9:00 PM CST (03:00 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

6.2 miles (9.9 km)

Path width

300 yards (274 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$70,000

County

Smith County

Touchdown point

31.901, -89.641

Lift-off point

31.939, -89.546

Record number

2501052052-01

12 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 110 mph.

• Pines down narrow corridor
• Downed oaks. 100 yard width estimated.
• Shed destroyed, debris blown downstream
• Carport thrown onto home with multiple hardwood trees down.

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

A potent weather system moved across the region on January 5th and produced a round of severe storms across the region into the early morning hours of the 6th. These storms produced damaging winds and tornadoes.

This tornado began along County Road 108 northwest of Shady Grove where a home suffered generally minor damage to gutters and flashing and a couple of trees were downed. The tornado moved northeast where it intensified and reached maximum intensity of 110 mph, EF-1, near County Road 503. Several trees were downed including uproots and pine snaps, a shed was destroyed with its contents strewn to the northeast, and 5-6 power poles were downed. The tornado then crossed County Road 71 where an oak was downed before it dissipated near County Road 106 where branch and small tree damage was observed.

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

7 minutes of warning. NWS JAN issued a tornado warning for this county at 02:45 UTC, 7 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 03:32 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:38 UTC and running to 03:41 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 00:34 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), 54 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:53 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 2025 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.