EF2 tornado in Webster Parish, Louisiana

This is the continuation of the Bossier Parish EF-2 tornado. This tornado weakened slightly as it crossed Pilgrim Rest Road, and tracked northeast before entering the southern sections of Doyline, downing hundreds of trees as it crossed Highways 163 and 164, before entering the extreme southeast corner of Camp Minden. The tornado then tore through the town of Sibley and the northern fringes of Dubberly, where it downed trees and power lines, damaged a metal barn, the roof of a home, and destroyed a shed on Wallraven Road. An 18-wheeler trailer was overturned at the South Webster Industrial Park in Sibley, and a building, fencing, and equipment were damaged at an oil field service company at the park. Just before the tornado crossed Interstate 20 between exits 49 and 52, it developed a much wider swath of damaging straight line winds with its rear flank downdraft near and just south of the tornado track. In fact, a large sign was blown over onto an 18-wheeler at Love's Truckstop at I-20 Exit 49 (Highway 531). After it crossed Interstate 20 southeast of Minden, the tornado then rolled a single-wide mobile home on Fuller Cemetery Road near the Nine Forks community and damaged the roofs of two structures before it moved into Southwest Claiborne Parish. The tornadic winds as it tracked through Southern Webster Parish did weaken slightly from its estimated maximum winds in Eastern Bossier Parish, and ranged from 95-110 mph, which is in the EF-1 range. At least 120 broken power poles and over 250 spans of downed wire were the result of this tornado and associated widespread damaging winds near Doyline, Sibley, Dubberly, and Minden. Significant damage was done to the major power distribution lines that feed the town of Sibley and the South Webster Industrial District.

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.