EF2 tornado, Whistler, Mississippi, March 4, 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

March 4, 2025

Touchdown

6:24 PM CST (00:24 UTC)

Lifted

6:32 PM CST (00:32 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

4.0 miles (6.4 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

4

County

Wayne County

Touchdown point

31.690, -88.785

Lift-off point

31.741, -88.753

Record number

2503041824-01

20 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS MOB, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 127 mph.

• Multiple chicken farms destroyed including several with debris removed from location. Chicken farms appear to be newer leading to maybe a slightly higher damage rating.
• Single wide manufactured home was rolled roughly 20 yards. Debris remainded rather confined to the area; however, all walls did completely seperate from the undercarriage. Two indaviduals were thrown from this location resulting in two injuries.
• Large hardwood trees uprooted likely near center of vortex.
• Mostly weak damage under siding of mobile home removed, small tree limbs and light roofing material removed

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

Severe thunderstorms produced a couple tornadoes across southeastern Mississippi late in the day of March 4th.

The tornado began in the forested area near Earl Pitts Rd before rapidly strengthening as it crossed highway 84. A single vehicle was rolled in a parking lot near highway 84 prior to the tornado destroying several newer chicken farm buildings. The tornado then continued north northeast across G&P farm rd where the tornado reached peaked intensity. At this location a single wide manufactured home was tossed roughly 50 to 100 yards and completely destroyed. The occupants were thrown from home resulting in two injuries at that location. A single-family wood frame home lost roughly 50 percent of its roof. The failure point of the roof was likely due to an open carport. Further up the road, a second manufactured home was rolled where two other injuries occurred. A few snapped tree trunks were noted along Riley Jordan Rd as the tornado continued northeast. The tornado paralleled Gravel Pit Rd resulting in minor tree damage and structural damage to a home. The roof of this home was partially removed likely due to a large overhang porch structure attached to the roof. A pickup truck was lofted and dropped roughly 20 yards from its original spot bending the frame on impact. Tree damage at this location was surprisingly minimal possibly hinting at either a discontinuous track or very small mesovortexes within a broader weaker parent circulation. Damage weakened significantly and the path became difficult to find as it crossed Gravel Pit Rd and then Clara West Rd likely supporting the discontinuous path. Minor damage was noted to trees and a manufactured home along old Exxon rd and Fred West Rd. At this point the tornado likely dissipated in the forest north of Fred West Rd. Special thanks to MEMA for providing drone imagery to further refine the track of this tornado.

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 18:23 UTC and running to 01:52 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 19:45 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 Mobile radar (KMOB), 126 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:22 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

36 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.