EF0 Tornado — Lafayette, Arkansas

2024-07-08 · near Canale, Lafayette, Arkansas

Event narrative

A brief EF-0 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 74 mph touched down in extreme Western Lafayette County Arkansas along Lafayette Road 47, downing some large tree limbs. This tornado was part of a multi-vortex tornado, that tracked north across some agricultural fields and lifted. An end point of damage could not be located in these fields, but a tornadic debris signature was evident of the NWS Shreveport Doppler radar, and dissipated between Lafayette Road 47 and Highway 160 east of County Road 57.

Wider weather episode

Tropical Storm Beryl briefly strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane with 80 mph winds as it made landfall along the Southeast Texas coast near Matagorda Bay during the early morning hours of July 8th, and tracked north-northeast across East Texas and into Southwest Arkansas during the afternoon and evening hours. While Beryl weakened into a tropical storm over portions of Deep East Texas by mid-afternoon, very strong wind shear and helicity existed near and east of the center, contributing to the largest tornado outbreak in NWS Shreveport history, as well as with any landfalling tropical system. A total of 43 tornadoes were confirmed through NWS surveys across East Texas, North Louisiana, and Southwest Arkansas, before Beryl weakened into a depression by late afternoon over East Texas. As a part of this outbreak, six tornadoes touched down across portions of Southwest Arkansas.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (33.0662, -93.8104)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1195765. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.