EF1 tornado in Rusk County, Texas

An EF-1 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 110 mph touched down along Highway 84 near the intersection of County Road 4234 west of Mount Enterprise, snapping and uprooting a few trees. The tornado continued eastward roughly along Highway 84, intensifying and snapping numerous trees in the Reagan Branch bottom, just west of the Farm to Market Road 225 intersection. It continued east-northeast snapping and uprooting trees as it crossed County Roads 3223, 3226, and 3206. Several farm outbuildings were tossed and completely destroyed along County Road 3206, with two residences sustaining roof damage, before the tornado lifted just northeast of the intersection of County Road 3206 and 3166.

An upper level longwave trough emerged out of the Intermountain West and into the Central and Southern Plains during the daytime and evening hours of January 10th. A strong southerly return flow commenced out ahead of the trough during the 8th-9th, allowing for unseasonably warm and humid conditions to advance northward across Southern Oklahoma, much of Central and Eastern Texas, as well as Louisiana, Arkansas, and the Lower Mississippi Valley. Meanwhile, an intensifying surface low pressure system and associated dry line developed along the Red River of North Texas into Southern Oklahoma during the afternoon hours, which spread east northeast across the Ark-La-Tex during the early morning hours on January 11th. With afternoon temperatures climbing into the mid 70s ahead of this trough, moderate instability developed across the broad warm sector, with very strong wind shear in place as large scale forcing increased ahead of the trough axis across East Texas, Southeast Oklahoma, Southwest Arkansas, and North Louisiana. Thus, an axis of strong to severe showers and thunderstorms developed during the evening hours across Southeast Oklahoma, adjacent sections of Southwest Arkansas and East Texas, which advanced east into North Louisiana during the early morning hours of the 11th. Damaging winds downed trees and power lines across portions of East Texas, with even multiple tornadoes touching down along the line of severe thunderstorms. Unfortunately, a man was killed when a tornado touched down west of Nacogdoches and a tree fell on his mobile home. These storms also produced locally heavy rainfall, with amounts of one to three inches, with isolated higher amounts up to four inches recorded across much of this area, resulting in isolated instances of flash flooding. These storms continued to intensify during the late evening and early morning hours as they moved into extreme Eastern Texas and Western Louisiana, producing more in the way of widespread wind damage and isolated tornadoes.