Numerous strong tornadoes destroy buildings in Mississippi

AccuWeather

A tornado ripped the roofs off of buildings in Taylorsville, Mississippi, on March 15, but that was just one of the destructive tornadoes across the Southeast on March 15, as storm chaser Aaron Rigsby explains.

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00:00Storm chaser Aaron Rigsby joins us as well. Aaron has had a tremendously interesting weekend here.

00:05He's joining us from Taylorsville, Mississippi. Aaron, yesterday you captured footage of a

00:1040-acre wildfire ahead of some nasty storms, and here you are in Mississippi

00:15on the backside of what has been a large tornado. So what have you experienced today?

00:21Yeah, Jeff, I tell you, it's been a very interesting 48 hours to say the least from

00:25that wildfire due to relatively low humidity, which is very interesting being ahead of a severe

00:31weather outbreak, especially to the one of how substantial it was that occurred overnight and

00:36then immediately had to get to Mississippi ahead of the same storm system, but a more potent side

00:42of it in Mississippi and Alabama. And as you can see behind me with these blown-in doors and snap

00:47trees, this has been the result of one of those many tornadoes that have occurred today across

00:51the southeast. Now I will say from a chasing perspective, today actually did not unfold how I

00:57thought it was going to. A lot of these tornadoes and storms actually fired way further south than

01:02I was anticipating and actually outside of some of the highest risk areas that we thought some

01:06of those storms were going to be today. And unfortunately, they did come with some results

01:11of damage and fatalities across the state of Mississippi today. So it's been a very busy start

01:16to 2025 and a very busy last 48 hours here. Aaron, well you've you've seen it all here over the past

01:23few days. What kind of damage have you seen in Taylorsville? I know we can't issue storm survey

01:30information until the Weather Service does their official thing. I'm looking at some of the footage

01:34from your videography, roofs removed off of buildings. Some of the forest damage that I've

01:40noticed has also been pretty striking here in some cases where just the trunks of trees are standing.

01:45What kind of damage do you think we've seen with this in Taylorsville?

01:50Yeah, you know, like you said, we got to wait for the damage surveyors to come out here to

01:53officially confirm those EF ratings. But storm chasing, as long as I have and seeing, you know,

01:57the amount of damage paths that I've seen, I would go that anywhere around here is probably

02:01likely on the high end side of an EF1, maybe a low-end EF2 tornado. This actually behind me

02:07isn't even the worst damage. A little bit, it got actually a little bit worse about two miles east

02:12of the town here. And outside of the, you know, satellite internet that we have there,

02:17communications have been cut off here as well. But this is just one of the many paths that

02:20occurred today. And actually a little bit further south along the Louisiana border,

02:25there was some higher-end damage there and likely going to be an EF3 plus type tornado

02:30once those damage surveys, you know, once they can get underway and release those official results.

02:34So we've seen numerous strong tornadoes today, especially across Mississippi and even a couple

02:39of cells up into Alabama near the Tuscaloosa area that did bring damage with those as well.

02:43So this has been a very widespread event. Really since last night, almost nonstop into the overnight

02:49hours and into early this morning, there was confirmed tornadoes as early as nine o'clock

02:53in the morning, which is very rare, especially on a big severe weather day like this one.

02:58All right. Well, we appreciate your insight as always. Storm chaser Aaron Rigsby,

03:02congrats again on the recent award from a month or so ago for last year.

03:06Aaron Rigsby, good stuff. I met Aaron about 12, 13 years ago in Toledo

03:11when he was a young chaser and he's done some amazing things.

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