EF1 Tornado — Sabine, Louisiana

2024-12-26 · near Zwolle Ammons Arpt, Sabine, Louisiana

Event narrative

A brief EF-1 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 100 mph touched down over the waters of Toledo Bend Reservoir, and moved northeast through a cove of the lake and ripped the sheet metal panels from several boat docks. The tornado flipped one floating boat house with the boat still inside its cradle. The tornado moved onshore, damaged a porch awning, and removed some metal roof panels from a couple of manufactured homes along Amanda Drive. Numerous large tree limbs were downed in this area, and a couple of hardwood and softwood trees were snapped. The tornado continued northeast along Yvonne Drive, crossed another cove of Toledo Bend Reservoir, and crossed Lee Street and Bull Run into a new subdivision of single family residences. One of these homes sustained minor roof damage, consisting of the loss of a few roof panels. The tornado crossed Highway 1215 and produced a significant swath of tree damage. Numerous hardwoods and softwoods were snapped and uprooted. One hardwood tree fell onto a home that was mostly constructed of metal, completely destroying it. This was also the most concentrated area of damage from this tornado. The tornado then began to weaken at this point as it crossed yet another cove of Toledo Bend Reservoir and moved back over land, uprooting a large pine tree and downing some small limbs before lifting along Flora Lane just north and west of Highway 1215.

Wider weather episode

An upper trough moving out of the Rockies aided in the development of a surface low along a frontal boundary over East Texas. Scattered strong to severe thunderstorms developed by early afternoon in an environment characterized by CAPE values around 1000 J/kg and strong low-level shear. A couple of isolated supercells developed across Deep East Texas and Western Louisiana. At the same time, most of the thunderstorms congealed into a linear complex, which moved east across East Texas and Northern Louisiana.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (31.5144, -93.7087)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1229053. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.