EF3 Tornado — Ouachita, Louisiana

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

Event narrative

An EF-3 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 140 mph touched down in a forested area near Horseshoe Lake Road, uprooting hundreds of trees. Winds increased and tree damage became more widespread as trees were uprooted and snapped, and several trees were debarked in a forested area before the tornado reached End of Line Road. This widespread tree damage was confirmed from drone video from the Ouachita Parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (OHSEP) and photos from the University of Louisiana Monroe. This forested area is where the tornado is believed to be strongest based on tree damage and radar imagery, but there were not sufficient damage indicators available to rate winds any higher than 140 mph (EF-3).

After passing through the forested area, the tornado ripped the roof off of two single family homes and destroyed an outbuilding along End of Line Road. It then damaged shingles from approximately ten houses as it tracked along Lonewa Lane and Rose Plantation Lane. Along Lonewa Lane, the tornado snapped four concrete poles (also indicative of EF-3 damage) before lifting just before it crossed Keystone Road about 1/2 mile northwest of Sterlington High School.

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 → (32.6215, -92.0977)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 879881. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.