December 9 Severe Weather and Tornadoes
A round of severe thunderstorms containing tornadoes, large hail and damaging
winds, occurred Tuesday December 9th into Tuesday night
across much of the Lower Mississippi River Valley. These
storms developed along and ahead of a strong surface cold
front and strong upper level disturbance. A surface low
developed to our west and tracked eastward increasing the
winds and drawing northward deep moisture and instability.
The cold front steadily pushed east and clashed with the
unstable and highly sheared environment and produced numerous
severe thunderstorms as squall line developed and tracked
eastward across the region.
At this time, 16 tornadoes have been confirmed. Surveys
have been ongoing since last Wednesday and more are planned
for the rest of this week. This may result in additional
tornadoes. Of the 16 tornadoes, 2 were rated EF2, 8 rated
EF1, and 6 rated EF0.
The worst damage was across Yazoo and Holmes Counties.
Several structures were damaged along with numerous trees
and power lines. Other heavily damaged areas were in Adams,
Rankin, Montgomery, Attala, Copiah, Jefferson Davis, Franklin,
Jefferson, Lamar and Jones Counties where many structures
were damaged along with trees and power lines down.
Historically, these 16 tornadoes rank 2nd all time for
the number of tornadoes in the month of December. The record
is 19 which occurred during the December of 1988. Additionally,
this December 9th event has pushed the yearly total of tornadoes
well above 100. This will set a new record for the number
of tornadoes in a year. The previous record of 99 was set
in 2005. A final count will be available toward the end
of the month or by the first week of 2009.
The National Weather Service would like to thank local
Emergency Management officials and local law enforcement
for their assistance in the survey process. As information
is collected, the web page will be updated with storm tracks
and damage photos.
Click here for an image
of area rainfall totals.
Damage Surveys:
| 
www.weather.gov 
National Weather Service Forecast Office
