EF1 tornado in Caldwell Parish, Louisiana

This brief EF1 tornado crossed the east side of the intersection of Hammock Road and Highway 506 in the very southern portion of Caldwell Parish. There were enough tree trunk snaps and uproots to confirm peak winds up to 100 mph. Two structures were damaged: one a large hay barn with most of the roof removed and another a single family residence experiencing low end roof damage. High resolution satellite image differencing techniques were used to clarify whether this tornado track extended any further than the limited ground access by the survey team allowed them to confirm, but no additional damage was noted. The tornado had a width of 200 yards and tracked just under one half mile.

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.