EF1 Tornado — Lafayette, Arkansas

2025-04-02 · near Canale, Lafayette, Arkansas

Event narrative

A strong EF-1 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 110 mph touched down along the Red River along the Miller/Lafayette County line, and tracked northeast across an open pasture and a levee just west of Lafayette County Road 57, where it snapped and uprooted several trees. The tornado then tracked across Lafayette County Roads 57 and 47, before moving across open farmland as it moved northeast towards Highway 160 west of Gin City. The Lafayette County Emergency Manager visually confirmed that the tornado remained on the ground across the open farmland, before snapping 7 wooden power poles along Highway 160 just west of Gin City. The tornado again moved across open farmland to the northwest of Gin City, before snapping 3 additional wooden power poles and a couple of trees, while ripping a small portion of a metal roof off of a home. The tornado lifted near a grove of trees behind Pleasant Valley Mennonite Church.

Wider weather episode

A warm and unstable air mass was in place across the Ark-La-Tex region on April 2nd ahead of an approaching cold front. With MLCAPE values near 2000 J/kg, along with strong effective bulk shear and steep mid-level lapse rates, isolated strong to severe thunderstorms rapidly developed and intensified along the front as it moved along the Interstate 30 corridor of Southwest Arkansas during the afternoon and evening hours. Multiple hazards were reported with these storms, which included two separate EF-1 tornadoes in Lafayette County along with a strong downburst in Columbia County.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (33.0609, -93.8330)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1255642. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.