EF1 Tornado — Webster, Louisiana

2024-07-08 · near Harris, Webster, Louisiana

Event narrative

An EF-1 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 105 mph touched down several

miles northeast of Minden along Grider Road, where a number of large trees were snapped and uprooted. Amongst the damage was a home that was struck by a large tree as it fell onto it. Tree damage continued along a very thin path through a grove of trees before increasing again along Highway 79, with additional tree damage observed along a private road on the northwest side of the highway before shortly lifting thereafter.

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 → (32.6594, -93.2067)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1205160. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.