Tornadoes · United States · Louisiana · 2017

EF0 tornado, Ridge, Louisiana, August 29, 2017

This EF0 tornado ran 0.6 miles across Lafayette Parish on August 29, 2017, touching down at 5:27 PM CDT and reaching 25 yards wide. It killed nobody.

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.

  1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

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

  2. EF186 to 110 mph

    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.

The record

Rating
EF0
Date
August 29, 2017
Touchdown
5:27 PM CDT (22:27 UTC)
Lifted
5:29 PM CDT (22:29 UTC)
On the ground
2 minutes
Path length
0.6 miles (1.0 km)
Path width
25 yards (23 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Lafayette Parish
Touchdown point
30.150, -92.150
Lift-off point
30.154, -92.225
Record number
1708291627-01

What the Weather Service recorded

Harvey moved across the Gulf of Mexico into the central Texas Coast during the last week of August. After the initial landfall, the cyclone moved back into the gulf a couple days later and then made another landfall in Southwest Louisiana during the morning of the 30th. The first rains from the system moved across the region during the afternoon of the 25th and finally ended during the morning of September 1. One to 5 feet of rain fell across Southeast Texas during the week which in some cases was slightly more than a normal yearly rainfall total. Widespread flooding occurred and a new rainfall record was set regarding the total for a tropical cyclone in the United States.

Pictures were sent in of a tornado that briefly touched down in a field near Ridge.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
22:38 UTC23:00 UTCTornado WarningLCH
04:29 UTC00:00 UTCWind AdvisoryLCH

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 Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:40 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

10.5 hours before the tornado, 97 km from the path. August 29, 2017.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lake Charles Mun, LA at 12:00Z on 2017-08-29Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 294 joules per kilogram, CIN -76, lifted condensation level 539 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°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, Lake Charles Mun, LA at 12:00Z on 2017-08-29The 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 363 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 39 knots.193958Sfc1 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
294 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-76 J/kg
Surface CAPE
122 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
539 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
39 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
29 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
363 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
449 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.4
Supercell composite
6.7
0-3 km lapse rate
4.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Lake Charles Mun, LA (KLCH), 00:00Z

1.5 hours after it, 97 km from the path. August 30, 2017.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lake Charles Mun, LA at 00:00Z on 2017-08-30Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 888 joules per kilogram, CIN -11, lifted condensation level 667 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°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, Lake Charles Mun, LA at 00:00Z on 2017-08-30The 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 65 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 37 knots.193958Sfc1 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
888 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-11 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1247 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
667 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
37 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
16 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
65 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
130 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.5
Supercell composite
2.6
0-3 km lapse rate
5.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Lake Charles radar (KLCH), 99 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:26 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)ReportWhereCountyRemark
21:35 UTCFUNNEL CLOUDLyons PointAcadia, LAACADIA PARISH SHERIFFS OFFICE RELAYED A PUBLIC REPORT OF A FUNNEL CLOUD NEAR LYONS POINT.
22:00 UTCTORNADO4 Sse WrightVermilion, LATORNADO BRIEFLY TOUCHED DOWN IN A FIELD. NO DAMAGE OCCURRED.
22:34 UTCTORNADORidgeLafayette, LAPHOTO OF TORNADO ON THE GROUND NEAR RIDGE.
22:40 UTCTORNADO1 S EvangelineAcadia, LAACADIA PARISH SHERIFF REPORTED A TORNADO ALONG RIVERSIDE ROAD NEAR LA 97 ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF EVANGELINE.

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

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2017 tornado in LouisianaEvery tornado in Louisiana since 1950Warnings in force in Louisiana nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of August 29, 2017

2 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
August 295:09 PM CDTEF2Acadia Parish, LA2.2175$200,000
August 295:42 PM CDTEF0Vermilion Parish, LA0.025

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.