Name: Hail and Lightning Strike in Louisiana, May 30, 2010
Start: 2010-05-30T14:21
End: 2010-05-30T14:40
Location: Louisiana

Where it happened

Every event with a place to put it. Tap one for its entry below.

Tornadoes
Tropical storms and surge
Floods
Wind
Hail
Winter weather
Heat and drought
Cold
Fire, smoke and dust
Marine and coastal
Other

Open the live radar over this ground

The toll

Deaths: 1
Injuries: 0
Property damage: None recorded
Crop damage: None recorded
Events: 3

Deaths and injuries are direct and indirect together, as the offices filed them. Damage is property and crops in the dollars of the year, not adjusted for inflation, and only where an office estimated it.

What happened

The episode as NWS LIX wrote it up.

Isolated severe thunderstorms produced large hail and one lightning fatality.

What forecasters said that day

The local office's own words before the first event, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.

NWS New Orleans, LA wrote its last area forecast discussion before the first event at May 29, 5:50 PM CST, 20 hours 31 minutes earlier.

Area forecast discussion, May 29, 5:50 PM CST, 20 hours 31 minutes before

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The radar

The national radar mosaic for the moment the first event began.

Open the radar archive at this moment

Event by event

2 hail, 1 lightning. Local standard time, as filed.

Hail, East Baton Rouge

When: May 30, 2:21 PM CST
Where: East Baton Rouge County, 3 mi ESE of Baton Rouge
Measured: 1.5 in hail
Reported by: NWS Employee
Coordinates: 30.453, -91.124

Public report relayed by NWS employee.

Hail, East Baton Rouge

When: May 30, 2:22 PM CST
Where: East Baton Rouge County, 3 mi SE of Baton Rouge
Measured: 1 in hail
Reported by: Public
Coordinates: 30.439, -91.134

Quarter size hail reported just east of the Interstate 10 and 12 split by a family member of a NWS employee.

Lightning, East Baton Rouge

When: May 30, 2:40 PM CST
Where: East Baton Rouge County, Baton Rouge
Deaths: 1 direct, 0 indirect
Reported by: Public
Coordinates: 30.470, -91.170

An eight year old boy from Columbus, Mississippi was fatally injured by lightning at a family gathering. The child was standing near a tree when the tree was struck by lightning from a thunderstorm. No rain was occurring at the time of the lightning strike. The boy was admitted to the hospital, and died on June 2.

The people who died

As the offices recorded each death: direct deaths were caused by the weather itself, indirect ones by something it set in motion.

Event	Date	Age	Sex	Where	Kind
Lightning, East Baton Rouge	2010-06-02	8	Male	Outside/Open Areas	Direct

What these are

Hail: Hail three-quarters of an inch or larger, or smaller hail that caused damage, filed with the largest stone measured.
Lightning: A lightning strike that killed, injured or caused damage.

After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.

The same day elsewhere

More

Every storm in Louisiana in 2010 Every state in 2010 This day in weather history Warnings in Louisiana, May 2010

Sources

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database, compiled from the National Weather Service’s monthly Storm Data. Complete through 2026-06; NCEI adds each month about 75 days after it ends and revises past years a few times a year. Rebuilt 2026-09-30. Each event’s entry at NCEI: 226312, 226310, 226316.