Tornadoes · United States · Louisiana · 2015
EF1 tornado, Calcasieu to Melder, Louisiana, December 21, 2015
From Calcasieu to Melder, this EF1 tornado ran 4.5 miles across Rapides Parish on December 21, 2015, touching down at 5:23 PM CST and reaching 30 yards wide. It killed nobody and injured 1, and did $10,000 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
- December 21, 2015
- Touchdown
- 5:23 PM CST (23:23 UTC)
- Lifted
- 5:32 PM CST (23:32 UTC)
- On the ground
- 9 minutes
- Path length
- 4.5 miles (7.2 km)
- Path width
- 30 yards (27 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 1
- Property damage
- $10,000
- County
- Rapides Parish
- Touchdown point
- 31.043, -92.734
- Lift-off point
- 31.078, -92.671
- Record number
- 1512211723-01
The damage survey
6 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LCH, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 90 mph.
- This occurred south of the meso and tornado path.
- hwy 112 just before right bend
Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.
What the Weather Service recorded
A line of strong storms along a cold front pushed across the region producing two tornadoes.
This tornado began along highway 112 where it uprooted some trees. It crossed the Calcasieu River and damaged the roof of one home and a barn on East River Road, as well as uprooting several trees. When it reached Peniel Loop Road it flipped a travel trailer where a man was inside. He was transported to a hospital for injuries. Several more trees were uprooted in the Peniel Loop Road area before the tornado dissipated.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
27 minutes of warning. NWS LCH issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:56 UTC, 27 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:30 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 22:56 UTC | 23:30 UTC | Tornado Warning | LCH |
| 23:29 UTC | 00:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | LCH |
| 00:33 UTC | 01:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | LCH |
| 03:01 UTC | 16:01 UTC | Dense Fog Advisory | 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:48 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), 12:00Z
11.4 hours before the tornado, 115 km from the path. December 21, 2015.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 171 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -50 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 601 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 48 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 31 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 228 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 261 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.8
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 3.5 K/km
Lake Charles Mun, LA (KLCH), 00:00Z
0.6 hours after it, 115 km from the path. December 22, 2015.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1729 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -6 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1633 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 530 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 40 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 24 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 157 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 173 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 1.5
- Supercell composite
- 6.3
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.3 K/km
The radar
The Ft Polk radar (KPOE), 28 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:22 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23:23 UTC | TORNADO 1 | 3 N Union Hill | Rapides, LA | *** 1 INJ *** NWS STORM SURVEY CONFIRMS AN EF1 TORNADO NEAR CALCASIEU. ONE MAN WAS INJURED WHEN THE TORNADO FLIPPED THE TRAVEL TRAILER WHILE HE WAS INSIDE. |
| 23:28 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Calcasieu | Rapides, LA | *** 1 INJ *** ONE INDIVIDUAL WAS INJURED IN A CAMPING TRAILER NEAR CALCASIEU |
| 23:28 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Calcasieu | Rapides, LA | REPORTS OF TREES DOWN NEAR CALCASIEU...POSSIBLY FROM A TORNADO...CLECO POWER REPORTING OUTAGES IN THE AREA. |
| 00:38 UTC | TORNADO 1 | 5 Ene Woodworth | Rapides, LA | A SECOND TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN...WHICH WAS VISUALLY SEEN AND PHOTOGRAPHED BY SEVERAL PEOPLE. THE TORNADO TOUCHED DOWNON HIGHWAY 71...LESS THAN A MILE NORTH OF LSU ALEXANDRIA. SEVERAL TREES WERE UPROOTED AND SEVERAL MOBILE |
| 00:53 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 6 Ene Woodworth | Rapides, LA | 911 CALL CENTER REPORTS TREES DOWN AND A CAR DAMAGED BY DEBRIS ON HWY 71 NORTH OF LA 3170 |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2015 tornado in LouisianaEvery tornado in Louisiana since 1950Warnings in force in Louisiana nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of December 21, 2015
1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| December 21 | 6:38 PM CST | EF1 | Rapides Parish, LA | 4.3 | 30 | $10,000 |
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.