NATCHEZ — This time, it really was a tornado.

Two meteorologists from the National Weather Service toured damaged areas Tuesday and confirmed that an EF1 tornado struck on the night of Tuesday, Dec. 9.

The tornado was approximately half a mile wide and began just outside the city limits on Providence Road, said Stephen Wilkinson, a warning coordination meteorologist with the Jackson NWS.

It traveled west to east, crossing over Lower Woodville Road, John R. Junkin Drive, Glenwood Subdivision, Duncan Park and Seargent S. Prentiss Drive before ending two miles east of the city limits on Liberty Road.

The maximum wind speeds reached 110 mph, making the storm the highest EF1 possible.

Wilkinson said the tornado was nearly an EF2. Tornadoes are ranked on the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF1 to EF5.

“If we had found a little bit stronger damage, I would have said EF2,” Wilkinson said.

The tornado was also likely surrounded by straight-line winds and inflow winds, he said. Inflow winds are strong winds that feed into a tornado.

Emergency Management Director Stan Owens clocked 50 mph winds at his office on Wall Street, several miles from the tornado’s path.

The meteorologists — guided by Owens, Supervisor Mike Lazarus and Alderman Mark Fortenbery — were looking for two determining factors to prove a tornado was present, a focused path and a convergent pattern.

They quickly identified the focused path, and then began looking for trees or debris that had fallen perpendicular to that path, forming a convergence.

They found them.

Next, the men used a computer program to determine the estimated wind speed. They examined structures with roof damage — including the shopping center that houses Subway on John R. Junkin Drive — and the types of trees that had been snapped.

The computer program contains data that tells what wind speeds are necessary to damage certain types of structures and trees.

Owens said Adams County had three houses with major damage and more than 50 structures with some type of damage.

The highest impact point of the tornado was 50 to 100 feet off the ground, Wilkinson said.

“If there had been no trees there, you would have seen more roof damage,” he said.

The National Weather Service originally said they did not believe last week’s storm contained a tornado. But Wilkinson said on-site surveys are the best way to confirm original predictions.

Owens said he has already filed paperwork with the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency asking for funding assistance for storm cleanup. He has not yet heard from the agency.

The Natchez tornado most likely sets a record, Wilkinson said, for most tornadoes in Mississippi within a year. The number is approximately 105, he said.

In 1998, much of downtown Natchez was affected by strong winds that the NWS ruled to be only straight-line winds. Affected residents argue the storm was a tornado to this day.