EF2 tornado in Rusk County, Texas

An EF-2 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 130 mph, touched down along County Road 3124 in extreme Eastern Rusk County, snapping and uprooting several trees before crossing County Road 3121 into Western Panola County. While the stronger winds were noted in Panola County, maximum winds were estimated to be near 90 mph (low EF-1 strength) in extreme Eastern Rusk County.

A closed upper low emerged out of the Rockies and into the Central Plains during the afternoon and evening hours of March 21st, with the attendant upper trough swinging east through Central Texas and Oklahoma. Strong southerly low level winds allowed for the rapid return of warm, moist, and unstable north behind a warm front which lifted north through East Texas and North Louisiana. Large scale forcing began to increase across Northern and Central Texas during the evening, with showers and thunderstorms becoming numerous across this area which spread into East Texas and North Louisiana during the late evening through the early morning hours of the 22nd. Given the extent of forcing within the unstable air mass in place, severe thunderstorms developed over North-central Texas and spread into East Texas, resulting in numerous reports of damaging winds, large hail, and even isolated tornadoes. Redevelopment of these storms continued overnight as well over the same areas of East Texas and Northwest Louisiana, which resulted in instances of flash flooding as well, as widespread rainfall amounts of 3-6 inches fell over these areas. These storms diminished during the early morning hours of the 22nd with the passage of a cold front through the region.