EF2 tornado in La Salle Parish, Louisiana

This is the continuation of the Southeast Grant Parish EF-2 tornado. This tornado, with estimated maximum winds of 134 mph, continued northeast across the heavily wooded areas just southeast of Highway 8, until it crossed Cecil Road where a double wide mobile home on cinder blocks was lifted, flipped, and moved approximately 100 yards. Fortunately, the couple living in the mobile home received the Tornado Warning via Wireless Emergency Alerts and moved to a nearby home before the mobile home was destroyed. The tornado tracked northeast across Highway 774 where numerous trees were snapped or uprooted, before moving over Mayo Road. It was here where a mobile home was completely destroyed with five other mobile homes, three structures, and four family homes suffering partial damage. The tornado crossed Highway 8 and along Highway 772, where the roof of a mobile home was partially ripped off, and a resident was trapped in a nearby home by falling trees. The tornado then moved through the community of Trout, where additional trees were snapped or uprooted and power lines downed along Highway 84 and Church Street. It continued northeast across Biltmore Drive, and across a heavily wooded area before finally lifting near an unnamed dirt road just off of Highway 127 a couple of miles northwest of Jena. The total path length of this tornado from when it initially touched down just southwest of Alexandria (in Rapides Parish), to when it lifted northwest of Jena (in La Salle Parish) was approximately 38 miles.

The La Salle Parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness estimates that 82 homes were damaged, eleven mobile homes were destroyed, as well as damage to two business and one public building. The Trout Post Office received minor damage as well as Ganey Equipment and a Methodist Church.

An upper level trough amplified during the daytime hours of October 31st across much of the Plains and Southern Rockies, which reinforced a strong cold front southeast into the Southern Plains. Ahead of this front and accompanying trough, above normal temperatures ranging from the mid 70s to lower 80s coupled with increased low level moisture resulted in a moderately unstable air mass during the afternoon. The pressure gradient tightened across the warm sector which expanded across much of the Ark-La-Tex, well ahead of the front as surface low pressure intensified along the frontal surface over North Texas. This enhanced wind shear as the front advanced east across much of Texas and Southeast Oklahoma, with large scale forcing ahead of the trough contributing to scattered shower and thunderstorm development during the afternoon over Southeast Oklahoma, Southwest Arkansas, and Central Texas. Some of these storms became severe of portions of Southwest Arkansas and extreme Northeast Texas, with a squall line developing farther west over Central Texas by mid and late afternoon, which quickly advanced east across much of East Texas and North Louisiana during the late afternoon and evening hours. Several reports of wind damage which downed trees and power lines were received across East Texas and Northwest Louisiana. This squall line weakened as it progressed east across Northcentral Louisiana, but a discrete supercell thunderstorm developed out ahead of the main line over Southwest Rapides Parish Louisiana, and spawned a nearly 40 mile long track tornado that remained on the ground from just southwest of Alexandria and across Southeast Grant and Central La Salle Parishes just prior to and shortly after midnight on November 1st. These storms quickly exited the southeast sections of Northcentral Louisiana by 2 am on the 1st, but not before spawning additional tornadoes and widespread wind damage across much of Mississippi.