National Weather Service Forecast Office - Memphis, TN - Storm Account

An account from an Itawamba county, Mississippi resident on April 27th, 2011:

I live in southeast Itawamba county, Mississippi. Our home was listed as a total loss due to damage suffered on 4/27/11. I believe
it was the only home declared a total loss in Itawamba county. I am not a trained weather observer, but this is what I recall
about April,27th. We were aware that the weather news was not good. I look at the NWS Memphis web site daily and we had a weather radio that was tuned to our fips code out of the NWS transmitter at Booneville, Mississippi. We were also tuned to WTVA, channel 9, in Tupelo. Their weather man did an excellent job of keeping us updated. Our electric power comes to us from the Monroe Power substation located near Smihville.  Before our power went out we knew there was a possible tornado, in northern Monroe county, headed in our general direction. Your office had a warning out and we could see the radar returns on WTVA. Our vision, in all directions, is limited due to the terrain where we live. The local ridges block or view and the timber we owned was still standing. We had about 32 acres of mature mixed upland hardwood.

We could see about, a quarter of a mile to the southwest toward the most likley direction of an approaching tornado. We saw a wide very dark cloud just above the ridgeline. The elevation here is not known to me, but I would guess it is between four and 500 feet above sea level. Perhaps it was a wall cloud? We could here a sound that I can`t describe well. It sounded like a giant hammer pounding the surface of the ground, boom – boom – boom. I have heard the sound of a dynamite explosion echo down a creek bottom, it sounded like that to some degree. It had some of the similarity to a a sonic boom that repeats itself. None of my descriptions does justice to what we heard. It did not have the sound of a train or jet engine. The only wind sounds we heard was while the funnel passed over our home I have heard similar wind sounds from straight line winds that often occur during a severe thunderstorm. The actual event lasted from ten to twenty seconds?

It must have had a fast forward speed. We are thankful that it was on us for such a short while. It wrecked our home and destroyed our timber.

I could see how the timber behind our home was affected. It first leanded away from the funnel cloud, much as mature timber would react to any strong wind. The trees came somewhat upright and then began to rotate. Some blew over, some lifted whole, and some twisted into. Some of the trees had the bark striped off and some field peas in our garden were stripped from the ground (they were less than one inch tall). We were not injured,but have suffered mentally a little. We have built a new house and and are doing well, but it is hard to start over when you are in your 60`s.

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