Tornadoes · United States · Louisiana · 2012
EF1 tornado, Evangeline, Louisiana, March 11, 2012
This EF1 tornado ran 1.6 miles across Acadia Parish on March 11, 2012, touching down at 11:02 PM CDT and reaching 20 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $80,000 of property damage.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
EF065 to 85 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- EF1
- Date
- March 11, 2012
- Touchdown
- 11:02 PM CDT (04:02 UTC)
- Lifted
- 11:04 PM CDT (04:04 UTC)
- On the ground
- 2 minutes
- Path length
- 1.6 miles (2.6 km)
- Path width
- 20 yards (18 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $80,000
- County
- Acadia Parish
- Touchdown point
- 30.270, -92.620
- Lift-off point
- 30.278, -92.594
- Record number
- 1203112202-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A weak frontal boundary entered Louisiana on the 11th and slowly moved into deep south central Louisiana during the early morning hours of the 12th. The boundary very slowly lifted back north by sunrise on the 12th and then thunderstorms kept back-building over Acadiana through late morning to around noon. High water levels took multiple days to recede.
A tornado touched down near the Jeff Davis - Acadia Parish line, a few miles north of I-10. The most significant damage occurred near the intersection of Riverside and Simeo Roads, where several hardwood trees were uprooted, several pine trees were snapped, and one home received minor roof damage. An open air barn had one wall blown out, and an unsecured storage building was flipped and destroyed.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
23 minutes of warning. NWS LCH issued a tornado warning for this county at 03:39 UTC, 23 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 04:15 UTC.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 02:57 UTC and running to 06:24 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19:52 UTC | 00:00 UTC | Wind Advisory | LCH |
| 02:57 UTC | 06:24 UTC | Tornado Watch | LCH |
| 03:39 UTC | 04:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | LCH |
| 04:13 UTC | 04:44 UTC | Tornado Warning | LCH |
| 04:54 UTC | 07:45 UTC | Flood Advisory | LCH |
| 05:50 UTC | 08:45 UTC | Flood Advisory | LCH |
| 13:51 UTC | 17:00 UTC | Flash Flood Warning | LCH |
| 16:14 UTC | 16:00 UTC | Flood Warning | LCH |
| 16:26 UTC | 04:34 UTC | Flood Warning | LCH |
| 16:28 UTC | 22:30 UTC | Flash Flood Warning | LCH |
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, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:57 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 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.
Lake Charles Mun, LA (KLCH), 00:00Z
4.0 hours before the tornado, 59 km from the path. March 12, 2012.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1310 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -14 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1603 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 439 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 33 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 26 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 150 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 135 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.6
- Supercell composite
- 4.3
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.4 K/km
Lake Charles Mun, LA (KLCH), 12:00Z
8.0 hours after it, 59 km from the path. March 12, 2012.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1900 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -1 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1250 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 441 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 32 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 22 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 111 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 116 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.8
- Supercell composite
- 4.4
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.8 K/km
The radar
The Lake Charles radar (KLCH), 61 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:02 UTC.
Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track
Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 03:27 UTC | TORNADO | 4 Sw Jennings | Jefferson Davis, LA | PUBLIC REPORTED A POSSIBLE TORNADO |
| 03:31 UTC | TORNADO | 4 Sw Jennings | Jefferson Davis, LA | PUBLIC REPORTED A POSSIBLE TORNADO. |
| 03:35 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | 1 W Jennings | Jefferson Davis, LA | SPOTTER VISITING FROM TENNESSEE REPORTS FUNNEL CLOUD 1 WEST OF JENNINGS. |
| 03:35 UTC | TSTM WND GST 60 | Jennings | Jefferson Davis, LA | SPOTTER VISITING FROM TENNESSEE REPORTED WINDS GUSTS 50 TO 60 MPH AND DIME SIZE HAIL. |
| 03:51 UTC | TORNADO | Jennings | Jefferson Davis, LA | RESTAURANT WORKER REPORTED TORNADO CROSSING I-10 NEAR THE OVERPASS. |
| 04:02 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Evangeline | Acadia, LA | REPORTS OF TREES AND POWERLINES DOWN. |
| 04:08 UTC | TORNADO 0 | 5 Ne Jennings | Acadia, LA | A TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN NEAR THE JEFF DAVIS-ACADIA PARISH LINE, A FEW MILES NORTH OF I-10. THE MOST SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE OCCURRED NEAR THE INTERSECTION OF RIVERSIDE AND SIMEO ROADS...WHERE SEVERAL HARD WOOD TREES WERE UPROO |
| 04:11 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 4 Ne Jennings | Acadia, LA | REPORT BY PUBLIC OF TREE DOWN ON HOUSE OFF RIVERSIDE RD. |
| 04:13 UTC | TORNADO | 5 Ne Jennings | Acadia, LA | VISITING SPOTTER FROM TENNESSEE REPORTS BRIEF TORNADO TOUCHDOWNS NEAR EVANGELINE HWY. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2012 tornado in LouisianaEvery tornado in Louisiana since 1950Warnings in force in Louisiana nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of March 11, 2012
2 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
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.