Thunderstorm Wind in Caldwell Parish, Louisiana

Trees downed.

A very mature squall line developed along and ahead of an advancing cold front across the Ark-La-Tex region during the late morning through the afternoon hours on March 4th. Damaging wind gusts were the primary threat with this squall line, but numerous strong mesovorticies became embedded within this quasi-linear convective system (QLCS). Dew points were in the mid to upper 60s with over 500 J/kg of MLCAPE and 450 m2/s2 of 0-1 km storm relative helicity (SRH). As temperatures continued to warm into the lower 70s with MLCAPE increasing to around 1000 J/kg MLCAPE, the increasing threat of supercell thunderstorm development only heightened the tornado threat into the afternoon. As a result, numerous reports of damaging straight-line wind gusts and several tornadoes were documented across North Louisiana along with isolated flash flooding.