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EF0 tornado in St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana

Tornado June 21, 2017 · St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana

EF0
Rating
1.9 mi
Path length
50 yd
Path width
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 50 yards (0.03 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF0 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF0 is light damage: shingles and siding peeled, gutters torn, branches broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 65–85 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

A weak tornadic waterspout moved onshore north of Ruddock, LA in St. John Parish. This tornado caused only minor damage to marsh vegetation and caused a small, defined path evident on high resolution satellite imagery. It's unclear if the tornadic waterspout continued northwest into Lake Maurepas as radar presentation continued to weaken and broaden as it moved offshore.

The wider storm

Tropical Storm Cindy developed over the central Gulf of Mexico on June 20th and moved generally northwest for the next few days before making landfall in southwest Louisiana near the Louisiana and Texas state line.

Cindy was an asymmetric system as it moved through the central Gulf toward southwest Louisiana, resulting in minor to moderate impacts across southeast Louisiana. The storm resulted in heavy rainfall, minor storm surge flooding, and isolated damage due to strong winds.

The minimum sea level pressure of 1004.4 mb, along with the highest wind gust and highest sustained wind in southeast Louisiana were all measured by the New Orleans Lakefront Airport ASOS. The highest wind gust recorded was 43 knots, or 49 mph, and the the maximum sustained wind in southeast Louisiana was 38 knots, or 44 mph. Tropical storm force winds were primarily experienced in gusts as squalls moved through the area. The winds did cause isolated minor damage to trees, roofs, and power lines. The only two known injuries in southeast Louisiana resulted from a tree falling on a mobile home in Houma.

A storm tide of generally 4 to 6 feet occurred along the Gulf Coast of southeast Louisiana from St. Bernard Parish through Terrebonne Parish. The highest measured storm tide was 6.18 ft NAVD88 at a USGS gauge near Point a la Hache in Plaquemines Parish. The elevated tides resulted in minor to moderate flooding mainly of low lying land and roadways outside the federal levee system.

Around Lake Pontchartrain, storm tide was generally measured in the 2 to 4 ft range, with a maximum value of 4.29 ft NAVD88 at the USCOE gauge near Mandeville. Again, impacts were minor to moderate with flooding to low lying land and roadways outside of levees systems.

Many areas of southeast Louisiana received 3 to 5 inches of rain with a few measurements in excess of 6 inches. Maximum storm total rainfall was 6.52 inches measured at a CoCoRaHS station in St. Bernard. The rainfall resulted in some minor river flooding across portions of the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain.

Began near Ruddock (30.2176, -90.4061).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1296690. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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