EF1 tornado in Union Parish, Louisiana

An EF-1 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 107 mph touched down on the east side of Highway 550 between Milton and Mariola Road. Here, it uprooted and snapped softwood trees, before continuing northeast in the embedded squall line which was also doing wind damage along both sides of the main tornado path. The most significant tornado damage occurred along Clayton Foster and Christine Roads, where it completely tore off the metal roofs from two chicken houses, and snapped and uprooted several hardwood and softwood trees. Additional chicken house damage occurred on the south end of the tornado closer to Christine Road, where a portion of the tin roof was peeled back, and metal roofing was thrown hundreds of feet along the main tornado path. The tornado finished its life cycle along Thomas Wade Road, where it ripped more metal roofing from chicken houses, and tossed them in a southerly direction away from the main circulation. The tornado lifted at this location, although areas near and east of Highway 15 continued to experience straight line wind damage along the path of the squall line as it moved across Central Union Parish.

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. Widespread damaging winds downed trees and power lines across much of Northwest and Northcentral Louisiana, with even a long track tornado developing along the line of severe thunderstorms across Central Bossier, Southern Webster, and Southern Claiborne Parishes. Another isolated tornado touched down in Western Union Parish, before these storms exited the region shortly before daybreak on the 11th. Unfortunately, these storms resulted in four fatalities across Northwest Louisiana, three of which occurred from the Haughton tornado.