EF1 tornado, Calcasieu to Elmer, Louisiana, December 9, 2008

1. EF065 to 85 mph

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

2. EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado

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

3. EF2111 to 135 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. EF3136 to 165 mph

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

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

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

6. EF5over 200 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.

Rating

EF1

Date

December 9, 2008

Touchdown

9:52 AM CST (15:52 UTC)

Lifted

10:01 AM CST (16:01 UTC)

On the ground

9 minutes

Path length

6.1 miles (9.8 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$200,000

County

Rapides Parish

Touchdown point

31.090, -92.730

Lift-off point

31.169, -92.683

Record number

0812090952-01

As a cold front approached central Louisiana, showers and thunderstorms developed. Some of these storms became severe and produced tornadoes, hail, and flash flooding in Rapides Parish.

An EF1 Tornado began west of the Calcasieu community and moved northeast ending around 3 miles north of Elmer. Numerous trees were damaged, snapped off, or uprooted all along the path. As the tornado crossed the area around the intersection of Highway 112 and Twin Bridges road, several homes and buildings received minor roof damage. One storage building along Twin Bridges Road was blown 50 yards away and destroyed, but was unsecured to the foundation. A few more homes along Twin Bridges road received minor roof damage before the tornado dissipated in the Kisatchie National Forest. ||The supercell that spawned this tornado later moved across Alexandria and Pineville, producing hail up to penny size and minor wind damage.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 15:40 UTC and running to 21:55 UTC.

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 Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 12:57 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 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.

Fullerton - Fort Polk (BKB), 26 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2008 tornado in LouisianaEvery tornado in Louisiana since 1950Warnings in force in Louisiana nowThe forecast where you are

18 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.

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