EF1 Tornado — Union, Louisiana

2019-04-25 · near Bayou D Arbonne Lake, Union, Louisiana

Event narrative

An EF-1 tornado with maximum estimated winds near 110 mph first touched down in the Holmesville community, where it damaged a chicken house near the intersection of Highway 15 and Holmesville Road. It then crossed Highway 15 and uprooted trees along its path to Lake D'Arbonne. Before it crossed the lake, it uprooted several trees which fell on a home that sustained major structural damage from the fallen trees. After crossing Lake D-Arbonne, the tornado snapped and uprooted trees along McCormick Road and Fourway Loop Road. It then crossed Highway 2, with more intermittent damage noted with large limbs broken and trees uprooted until it reached Love Road. There, a more consistent damage path was found where trees were uprooted and snapped. The tornado continued to down trees and tore off shingles on the roof of a building as it crossed Highway 143 in the Linville community. The tornado then moved on to uproot and snap trees along Alabama Landing Road and Dean Haile Road before finally lifting just short of the Upper Ouachita National Wildlife Refuge.

Four homes suffered major damage from this tornado, with twelve homes sustaining minor damage. In all, some form of residential damage occurred at approximately over one-hundred homes throughout Union Parish. Thirty-one businesses also suffered major damage. Numerous reports of major damage were also received to chicken farming areas across the southeast sections of Union Parish as a result of this tornado. Structural damage was sustained to several poultry houses, with the entire roofs removed.

Wider weather episode

A strong closed upper level low pressure system advanced east across Central Texas during the evening hours of April 24th, which helped to mix a warm front north into portions of Deep East Texas and Northcentral Louisiana. As a result, warm, moist, and unstable air began to build north along and south of the front, as steepening lapse rates aloft spread east along the axis of increasing large scale forcing ahead of the low. This resulted in an increase in scattered to numerous showers and thunderstorms near and south of the warm front from the late evening hours of the 24th through the early morning hours of the 25th across East Texas and North Louisiana. Coupled with the strong wind shear present across the expanding warm sector, several supercell thunderstorms developed, with one supercell spawning six separate tornadoes from San Augustine Texas northeast to Eastern Union Parish Louisiana, directly impacting the cities of San Augustine Texas and Ruston Louisiana along its 150+ mile track across the NWS Shreveport County Warning Area. In fact, this supercell spawned another tornado across Northwest Morehouse and Southern Ashley County Arkansas, to complete its nearly 180 mile track before dissipating. Other isolated supercells developed near and south of the warm front which spawned tornadoes across Northern Caddo Parish and Central La Salle Parish in Northern Louisiana, with other severe thunderstorms producing damaging winds across portions of Northcentral Louisiana as well, before the storms exited the region around daybreak on the 25th.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (32.6914, -92.3973)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 816381. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.