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EF1 tornado in La Salle Parish, Louisiana

Tornado April 4, 2011 · La Salle Parish, Louisiana

EF1
Rating
9.3 mi
Whole path
275 yd
Path width
$250K
Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Grant Parish → La Salle Parish; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 275 yards (0.16 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF1 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF1 is moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 86–110 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

This tornado was a continuation of the tornado that first touched down in extreme northeastern Grant Parish. Numerous trees were uprooted/snapped, with some falling on homes as the tornado tore through the Zenoria community before it lifted just northeast of Highway 84 about 5 miles southeast of Tullos. Numerous trees along the path were snapped/uprooted. Falling trees blocked Highway 84. Several homes were damaged when trees fell on/through them. One car was crushed from a falling tree in the Zenoria community. One house directly affected from the tornado in Zenoria had some shingles removed from the roof, with a tin roof of a shop behind the home having been peeled off and thrown forward into some nearby trees.

The wider storm

A strong upper level short wave move from west to east across the Central Plains states of the U.S. driving a cold front southeast into the Four State Region. Strong to severe thunderstorms formed in the unstable air mass ahead of the cold front. The front and at least 3 lines of thunderstorms moved through the Four State Region from west to east during the day. Strong low level shear in the atmosphere allowed some thunderstorms to rotate, producing tornadoes with damaging straight line winds producing downbursts.

Began near Zenoria (31.7278, -92.3553).

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 282667. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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