More Than Two-Mile-Wide Mississippi Easter Tornado, One of Largest Ever Documented in U.S., Was State's Widest on Record

A deadly Easter Sunday tornado in Mississippi shattered a state size record and was among the largest twisters documented in the United States.

The tornado, rated EF4, carved a 68-mile-long path through parts of five Mississippi counties, from Jefferson Davis County to Clarke County, according to the National Weather Service office in Jackson, Mississippi.

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The NWS damage survey found the tornado's peak width to be 2.25 miles wide making it the largest tornado on record in Mississippi.

When you think of tornadoes, you may first think of the classic elephant trunk, rope or stovepipe-shaped tornadoes that are relatively narrow at the ground like this one, perhaps a few hundred yards wide.

But this Easter Sunday EF4 was a giant, as The Weather Channel meteorologist Mike Seidel could attest, as he drove through a small, but still considerable, part of the damage path near Bassfield.

The previous record tornado width documented in Mississippi was almost exactly a decade ago, when another EF4 tornado up to 1.75 miles wide raked through Yazoo City on April 24, 2010. Incidentally, that tornado had a 149-mile path length, over twice as long as Easter Sunday's tornado.

This giant tornado wasn't just an anomaly in Mississippi.

According to ustornadoes.com, only two other tornadoes in the U.S. were found to be larger than the Mississippi Easter tornado.

The El Reno tornado was infamous for claiming the lives of three storm chasers, including Tim Samaras, and injuring the crew of The Weather Channel Tornado Hunt team.

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The Hallam, Nebraska, F4 tornado of May 2004 was up to 2.5 miles wide, according to an NWS damage survey.

Determining the size of tornadoes is tricky. Sometimes, the same severe thunderstorm that spawns a tornado will also produce damage from a downburst or microburst. This straight-line wind damage may merge with the tornado damage.

There could also have been wider tornadoes prior to the late 20th century, before standardized, comprehensive National Weather Service damage surveys were done.

But just because a tornado is large doesn't necessarily mean it's intense.

The Columbia County, Wisconsin, tornado on June 7, 2008 (listed on the graphic above), was up to two miles wide, but produced mainly EF0 or EF1 damage, with only a few swaths of EF2 damage from the tornado's multiple vortices, according to NOAA's Storm Events Database.

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