EF2 tornado, Lamar County, Mississippi, May 6, 2026

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, as surveyed

EF2, preliminary

Date

May 6, 2026

Touchdown

6:51 PM CDT (23:51 UTC)

Lifted

7:13 PM CDT (00:13 UTC)

On the ground

22 minutes

Path length

13.4 miles (21.5 km)

Path width

600 yards (549 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

3

County

Lamar County

Touchdown point

31.117, -89.591

Lift-off point

31.177, -89.379

Highest wind the damage implies

135 mph

Surveyed by

NWS JAN

The office's name for it

Coal Town - Purvis Tornado

Survey last edited

June 9, 2026

Record number

None yet. SPC numbers 2026 in the spring of 2027.

This tornado began near or just west of the intersections of Tatum Salt Dome Road and R Thompson Road where it produced damage to trees crossing Tatum Salt Dome Road with a narrow swath of damage produced just north of R Thompson Rd. The tornado moved eastward through the Half Moon Creek lower wooded areas before crossing Beach Road, retaining a consolidated core that could be observed transecting the roadway twice as the tornado track roughly paralleled the roadway. The tornado produced mostly vegetative damage until it approached western Purvis in the Boggy Hollow areas where outbuildings were damaged or destroyed and trees were blown onto homes. A mobile home was blown off of its blocks just north of Purvis-to-Columbia Road, which the tornado approximately moved along as it traveled east-northeast. The tornado intensified to its maximum intensity, producing damage that suggests maximum winds were at least 135 mph as several residences had roofs removed as well as some exterior walls blown inward near Coal Town Road and Highway 589. Significant damage was also observed along Central Industrial Row where several metal building system (MBS) warehouse and commercial buildings had walls and internal structures including pillars/columns and roofing purlins destroyed. Numerous other facilities suffered substantial loss of roofing materials including the Lamar County Multi-Purpose Center. The tornado continued eastward downing numerous trees and causing widespread damage to roofs and outbuildings before dissipating just east of US Highway 11. The tornado at maximum width was estimated at 600 yards, had a track length of 13.4 miles, and had a maximum estimated intensity of 135 mph, EF-2.

Written by NWS JAN in the NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit. A survey is revised as better evidence arrives.

60 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS JAN, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 135 mph.

• Few trees in a narrow convergent zone uprooted.
• Trees on north side of road down, covergent northward.
• Narrow corridor (200 yd) of numerous pines down
• Multiple trees down, some on homes

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

34 minutes of warning. NWS JAN issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:17 UTC, 34 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:17 UTC and running to 04:00 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, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:48 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 Hammond radar (KHDC), 112 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:54 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 2026 tornado in MississippiEvery tornado in Mississippi since 1950Warnings in force in Mississippi nowThe forecast where you are

9 more have been surveyed in the United States that day, so far.

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. A survey can be revised, so the rating, the path and the casualties can all still change.

NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit, the record the survey teams file from the damage, and NOAA Storm Prediction Center storm reports. Neither is the official database for 2026, which SPC publishes in the spring of 2027.