EF1 tornado in Red River County, Texas

An EF-1 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 100 mph touched down on Farm-to-Market Road 44 South approximately one mile southwest of the town of Lydia, lifting a roof off of a shed adjacent to a residential home. The tornado then moved east northeast toward downtown Lydia, producing tree damage across County Road 4645 before crossing into Bowie County. This tornado tracked just under two miles in far eastern Red River County before exiting into Bowie County. However, it should be noted that the tornado intensity in Southeast Red River County near Lydia was weaker than its peak intensity in Bowie County, with wind speeds in Red River County estimated near 90 mph.

A very mature squall line developed along and ahead of an advancing cold front across the Ark-La-Tex region during the mid to late morning into early afternoon 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. As a result, numerous reports of damaging straight-line wind gusts and several tornadoes were documented across East and Northeast Texas.