Thunderstorm Wind — Union, Louisiana

2018-08-20 · near Rum Center, Union, Louisiana

Event narrative

A large hardwood tree that was rotten on the interior portion of the trunk was blown onto a mobile home on Pilgrims Rest Church Road northwest of Spearsville (and about two miles south of the Arkansas state line), killing a 45 year old woman inside the home. No one else was inside the home at the time of the incident.

Wider weather episode

An unusual August cool front shifted south across East Texas, Southern Arkansas, and North Louisiana during the afternoon hours of August 20th, south of an upper low and attendant upper trough that tracked east across the Mid and Lower Mississippi Valleys. Scattered showers and thunderstorms developed during the late afternoon through the evening hours along the front over Northcentral Louisiana, where greater large scale forcing ahead of the trough interacted with strong instability as temperatures had climbed into the upper 90s to near 100 degrees ahead of the front. Some of these storms became severe, producing multiple reports of wind damage which downed numerous trees and power lines. A 76 mph wind gust was measured at the Monroe Regional Airport in Ouachita Parish, with an estimated 60 mph wind gust also observed in Dubach in Lincoln Parish. Unfortunately, a tree also fell onto a mobile home near the Spearsville community in Union Parish, killing a woman inside of the home.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (32.9919, -92.6511)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 767467. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.