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EF0 tornado in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana

Tornado January 20, 2010 · Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana

EF0
Rating
4.6 mi
Path length
300 yd
Path width
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 300 yards (0.17 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

Several large trees were toppled and uprooted while many other trees had their tops snapped off. Several large branches were broken off of other trees in the path as well.

The wider storm

A very warm and unstable air mass developed across the region on January 20th. This air mass was accompanied by unusually high dewpoint values for late January with ambient temperatures approaching the 70 degree mark. A very strong and vigorous storm system moved out of the Great Basin and into the Southern Plains and Lower Mississippi Valley during the late afternoon and evening hours of January 20th. Wind shear throughout the atmosphere was very strong and supportive of strong to severe thunderstorms. Low level wind shear was significant enough such that super cell thunderstorms developed across the region, producing tornadoes, large hail and damaging wind gusts. In addition to the severe thunderstorms, some storms produced flash flooding as they continued to train across the same general areas, especially across portions of northwest Louisiana and southwest Arkansas.

Began near Hagewood (31.7667, -93.2623).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

1 more tornado the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 203446. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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