EF2 Tornado — Red River, Louisiana

2024-07-08 · near Cross Rds, Red River, Louisiana

Event narrative

A long track EF-2 tornado, with estimated maximum winds near 115 mph, touched down along Loggy Bayou in extreme Northern Red River Parish, with high-resolution satellite imagery indicating significant tree damage along the bayou between Highway 71 and 515 before crossing into Southern Bossier Parish. However, the damage in Northern Red River Parish was rated as high-end EF-1, with estimated maximum winds near 105 mph, with the stronger EF-2 rated damage found farther north in Central Bossier Parish.

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 → (32.1962, -93.4120)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1203673. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.