EF3 Tornado — Ouachita, Louisiana

2020-04-12 · near Bawcomville, Ouachita, Louisiana

Event narrative

An EF-3 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 140 mph touched down at the corner of Fern Street and Brown Street in the Brownsville-Bawcomville community. As it moved through this area, it downed and snapped hundreds of trees, many of which fell onto homes. As the tornado crossed Sandal Street, it caused minor structural damage to several single-wide manufactured homes before tipping over a trailer as it crossed Jonesboro Road. The tornado then proceeded onward to break the metal trusses and bring down a wood chip conveyor belt onto a train at the Graphic Packaging International Paper Mill. As the tornado continued, it crossed the Ouachita River twice where it bends sharply before increasing intensity along Riverbend Drive. This increase in intensity was most notable from the many tree trunks snapped, the roof ripped off of a single family home, and the collapsed wall of another single family home.

The tornado then crossed the Ouachita River again and partially damaged the roof of the Masur Museum of Art, missing Downtown Monroe by roughly a mile. As it crossed South Grand Street, it then ripped the roof off of a two story home and continued on to damage the roofs of several homes and downed trees until it crossed the intersection of Highway 165 and Interstate 20. There, it damaged a metal building structure and snapped a wooden power pole and steel light assembly as it crossed Millhaven Road. Numerous other power poles were snapped and blown over across Millhaven Road. Two semi trucks were also blown over near the Highway 165/Interstate 20 intersection as well.

The worst damage from the tornado then occurred along Orchid Drive where it ripped the roof off of three homes and collapsed much of the exterior walls of one of the homes. It is believed that a mesovortex within the tornado led to this narrow corridor of more intense damage. After the tornado moved out of this subdivision, damage became more sporadic and the tornado touch down several more times before it destroyed a metal hangar housing several airplanes at the Monroe Regional Airport. The tornado then lifted as it crossed a runway at the airport.

Initial estimates from the Ouachita Parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness indicate that a total of 458 homes across the parish were impacted by this tornado and the two other tornadoes which also touched down near the Sterlington community in Northern Ouachita Parish that same morning of April 12th. Of these homes, 23 homes were destroyed, 108 had major damage, 243 with minor damage, and another 84 homes were affected across the parish. Damage at the Monroe Regional Airport alone was estimated at $25-30 million. According to Entergy, South Monroe lost seven distribution lines and one substation as a result of this tornado. Several other circuits and transmission structures were also damaged.

Wider weather episode

Warm, moist, and unstable air surged north into East Texas, North Louisiana, and Southern Arkansas during the evening through the early morning hours of April 11th-12th, along a warm front that lifted north across much of East Texas into North Louisiana. Meanwhile, a strong upper level low opened up into a trough as it entered the Southern Plains during the evening of the 11th, with large scale forcing ahead of the trough enhancing shower and thunderstorm development across much of West-central, Central, East and Southeast Texas during the evening through the early morning hours. Given the extent of shear, instability, and upper level forcing in place across the warm sector, numerous showers and thunderstorms developed over these areas, which quickly spread east northeast into East Texas around and shortly after daybreak on the 12th, and into North Louisiana during the mid and late morning hours. Some of these storms were severe, producing numerous reports of damaging winds, large hail, and tornadoes. In all, nine tornadoes touched down across North Louisiana, including two EF-3 tornadoes with estimated maximum winds near 140 mph which tore through the southern sections of West Monroe through Central and Eastern Monroe, as well as just southwest of Sterlington in Northern Ouachita Parish.

While there was a lull in the thunderstorms during much of the afternoon, additional strong to severe thunderstorms developed across portions of Northeast Texas well behind the dry line which had mixed east to near Texarkana into Western Louisiana, and near the center of the upper level trough. Steep lapse rates aloft and the drier low level air mass contributed to areas of damaging winds and isolated instances of large hail, with the majority of the wind damage from a collapsing thunderstorm which originated just east of Dallas, and quickly moved east along the I-20 corridor in East Texas into Western Louisiana. Aided by strong pressure rises behind an associated cold front, a large swath of damaging winds were noted with the severe gust front, with gusts ranging from 50-70 mph well ahead of the collapsed storm. This resulted in numerous reports of downed trees and power lines across East Texas and Western Louisiana, with AEP Swepco noting that over 64,000 customers were without power at one time in the aftermath of the storms. These damaging winds diminished across Western Louisiana by mid-evening.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (32.4706, -92.1699)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 879880. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.