EF2 Tornado — De Soto, Louisiana

2024-07-08 · near Lola, De Soto, Louisiana

Event narrative

This is a continuation of the Northern Sabine Parish tornado. This EF-2 tornado, with estimated maximum winds near 125 mph, intensified as it entered Southern DeSoto Parish, and continued to snap large trees as it crossed Barnes Road, Nubin Ridge Road, and Lula Lane. Beulah Baptist Church at the intersection of Highway 539 and Highway 481 suffered significant damage, as some of the metal wall panels were blown in and portions of the metal roof were removed. The original church structure, which dated back to the 1900's, was heavily damaged, with the roof and exterior walls of the southern half of the building collapsed. The steeple from this building was blown off and found 0.3 miles to the north-northwest. Another metal building system housing the gymnasium and basketball court was severely damaged. The steel I-beams of the structure were pulled free from their anchors, and thrown into the back of the original church building. Most of the anchoring bolts were still in the ground. This was where the damage to the original church building and the gymnasium was rated highest, as an EF-2 with estimated maximum winds near 125 mph. Extensive tree damage was also observed in this vicinity. A single-wide manufactured home just northwest of the church suffered minor roof damage, with the tornado continuing northwest damaging more hardwood and softwood trees as it crossed Hamilton Road, Harris Bluff Road, and Jesse Wyatt Road. The tornado resulted in more damage along Roger Field Road and generally paralleled Hunter Road before crossing Highway 84. More broken tree limbs were observed as the tornado generally moved north along Blunt Mill Road. It finally lifted just north of the intersection of Cedar Hill Road and Blunt Mill Road. The total path length of this tornado was 16.5 miles.

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, 25 tornadoes touched down across portions of North Louisiana.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (31.8450, -93.7520)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1203625. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.