Mile 459.0 - 2010 F-4 Tallulah - Yazoo Tornado

LBD 459 2010 F-4 Tallulah - Yazoo Tornado

As you paddle along past the bottom of Willow Island you will notice a large swath of forest on the Mississippi shore left bank descending that has been subjected to the worst haircut you have ever seen. It might at first appear to be a thinned forest. Or maybe a sloppy clear-cutting. But as you look closer you will realize that many of the trees have been split open and splintered wrathfully. Some have been twisted round and round and round. And others have been ripped in half. The swath of trashed forest is about a half-mile long. This is where the April 27, 2010 F-4 tornado crossed the river from Tallulah on its way to Yazoo City and points northeastward. This tornado was probably less than F-3 when it crossed the Mississippi. It was maybe a half mile wide. I sure would have liked to have been there on Willow Island watching its crossing! It

hopped and skipped over the levee and cleared out several thousand acres of land by Eagle Lake, and ravaged some of the Eagle Lake community, before continuing northeasterly and growing in size. When it reached Yazoo City it was a monstrous 1-2 miles wide. It buzzed a wide path from one end of the state to the other, crossing Hwy 61, the Big Sunflower, the Yazoo River, US 49, the Big Black, I-55, US 51 and onwards until finally petering out in the vicinity of the Pearl River headwaters somewhere near Sturgis, Mississippi.

Kansas City tornado expert Stan Finger reported that: “the tornado was on the ground for 149 miles, from 5 miles west of Tallulah, Louisiana, to about 5 miles north of Sturgis, Miss. The tornado was on the ground for nearly 3 hours and reached a maximum width of 1.75 miles. Storm damage surveys placed Saturday’s tornado at EF3 during much of its path but EF4 through Yazoo and Holmes counties. 10 people died and nearly 50 were injured. Only five tornadoes in recorded history have confirmed damage paths longer than the Yazoo City tornado, which traversed nearly the entire width of Mississippi before dissipating. The longest track of them all belongs to the Tri-State Tornado of 1925, which was on the ground for 219 miles. That tornado killed nearly 700 people.”

(From Stan Finger: Finger on the Weather)