EF1 Tornado — Grant, Louisiana

2025-05-26 · near Oakgrove, Grant, Louisiana

Event narrative

An EF-1 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 100 mph touched down along Highway 8 between the Oak Grove and Bentley communities, where numerous hardwood and softwood trees were snapped, with a few trees uprooted as well. The tornado tracked east-southeast, crossing Roland Preutt Road and Lone Pine Road, where the tree damage was the most significant and widespread. While numerous trees were uprooted and large limbs were downed as the tornado crossed Rock Hill Road and Highway 167 south of Bentley, the damage became more sporadic, as it turned northeast crossing Shadow Road, and then Highway 8 again. A well-defined path of snapped pine trees was noted here and where the tornado lifted just east of South Tower Road, north of the Kisatchie National Forest Catahoula Ranger Station. Nearly all of the damage from this tornado consisted of tree damage, with some roof damage east of Bentley due to damaged trees falling onto structures.

Wider weather episode

A weak surface frontal boundary drifted south to near the I-20 corridor of East Texas and North Louisiana during the early morning hours of May 26th, with a warm and moist air mass along and south of the front yielding adequate instability along and south of the front. While scattered strong to severe thunderstorms over portions of extreme Northeast Texas, Southeast Oklahoma, and Southwest Arkansas reinforced this boundary south during the evening of the 25th, a second complex of showers and thunderstorms developed during the early morning hours of the 26th along this front over North Texas, as additional upper level disturbances and a southerly low level jet resulted in large scale ascent. This complex of storms spread southeast across much of East Texas and North Louisiana during the morning and afternoon hours, and produced instances of damaging winds and flash flooding along the front along the I-20 corridor. An isolated tornado was also spawned from a severe thunderstorm later that afternoon over Central Grant Parish.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (31.5177, -92.5277)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1265181. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.