Tornadoes · United States · Louisiana · 1995

F1 tornado, Georgetown, Louisiana, April 22, 1995

This F1 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Grant Parish on April 22, 1995, touching down at 7:45 PM CDT and reaching 10 yards wide. It killed nobody.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  1. F040 to 72 mph

    Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

  2. F173 to 112 mphthis tornado

    Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

  3. F2113 to 157 mph

    Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.

  4. F3158 to 206 mph

    Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

  5. F4207 to 260 mph

    Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

  6. F5261 to 318 mph

    Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.

  7. Unrated

    The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.

The record

Rating
F1
Date
April 22, 1995
Touchdown
7:45 PM CDT (00:45 UTC)
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
10 yards (9 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Grant Parish
Touchdown point
31.770, -92.380
Record number
211

What the Weather Service recorded

Sheriff's Office reported a tornaod briefly touched down near highway 165. Tornado path length and width estimated.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

The warnings

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 08:06 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

The air that afternoon

The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.

Shreveport, LA (KSHV), 00:00Z

0.8 hours before the tornado, 151 km from the path. April 23, 1995.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Shreveport, LA at 00:00Z on 1995-04-23Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1 joules per kilogram, CIN 0, lifted condensation level 487 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Shreveport, LA at 00:00Z on 1995-04-23The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 334 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 66 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
1 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
0 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
487 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
66 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
30 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
334 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
790 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.1
0-3 km lapse rate
3.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Shreveport, LA (KSHV), 12:00Z

11.2 hours after it, 151 km from the path. April 23, 1995.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Shreveport, LA at 12:00Z on 1995-04-23Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 2 joules per kilogram, CIN 0, lifted condensation level 464 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Shreveport, LA at 12:00Z on 1995-04-23The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 13 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 63 knots.1939587897Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
2 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
0 J/kg
Surface CAPE
22 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
464 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
63 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
8 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
13 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-3 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
2.5 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Alexandria - Esler (ESF), 43 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
23:00 UTC6763.86110° 16 kt211009.1
23:04 UTC110° 15 kt231009.1
23:20 UTC120° 16 kt201009.5
23:28 UTC110° 14 kt181009.1
00:00 UTC6563.86110° 12 kt1008.1-TSRA FG
00:04 UTC120° 12 kt1007.8
01:00 UTC6563.86110° 15 kt201005.8-TSRA
01:04 UTC130° 17 kt261005.1
01:34 UTC300° 14 kt1007.8
02:00 UTC6563.8690° 8 kt1007.1-TSRA FG
02:11 UTC340° 18 kt251008.8
02:37 UTC90° 7 kt1008.1

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1995 tornado in LouisianaEvery tornado in Louisiana since 1950Warnings in force in Louisiana nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of April 22, 1995

13 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
April 225:05 AM CDTF0East Carroll Parish, LA1.550
April 225:30 AM CDTF1Sharkey, MS8.0200$50,000 to $500,000
April 227:45 AM CDTF1Walker, AL1.560$50,000 to $500,000
April 222:30 PM CDTF0Ouachita Parish, LA0.130
April 222:45 PM CDTF0Ouachita Parish, LA0.110
April 225:00 PM CDTF0Pike, MS0.120
April 225:24 PM CDTF0De Soto Parish, LA0.130
April 226:05 PM CDTF0Baldwin, AL0.130
April 226:54 PM CDTF0Concordia Parish, LA0.130
April 226:54 PM CDTF0Natchitoches Parish, LA0.130
April 227:05 PM CDTF0Pike, MS5.020
April 227:10 PM CDTF0Hancock, MS0.120
April 227:25 PM CDTF0Lincoln, MS1.040$500 to $5,000

What this means

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.

Sources

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.