On Today's Date: An F5 Tornado Roared Through Jackson, Mississippi
Tornadoes in the U.S. typically increase sharply in spring. Unfortunately, a few of those can be violent tornadoes, particularly in the South.
On March 3, 1966, 59 years ago today, an F5 tornado tore a 202-mile long path across central and eastern Mississippi into western Alabama. Of the 58 people killed by the twister, 57 were in central Mississippi, still the state's second deadliest tornado since 1950, according to the National Weather Service in Jackson.
The tornado first obliterated the Candlestick Park shopping center on the south side of Jackson, Mississippi, throwing some vehicles over a half mile and ripping pavement out of the ground. It then brushed the north side of Thompson Field, now Jackson-Evers International Airport, damaging the Mississippi Air National Guard base.
In Scott County, homes were "destroyed to the foundation, large swaths of trees were totally annihilated and chicken houses were completely obliterated," according to an NWS-Jackson recap.
This Candlestick Park tornado is one of only four Mississippi tornadoes to receive either an F5 or EF5 rating, though a recent study has cast some doubt on whether recent EF4 tornadoes should be rated EF5. Two of those EF5 tornadoes occurred during the April 27, 2011 Super Outbreak.
An average of 89 tornadoes have touched down in Mississippi each year from 2021 through 2024, according to NWS-Jackson statistics.
Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on Bluesky, X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook.
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