EF1 tornado, Sykes Ferry to Shongaloo, Louisiana, April 13, 2018

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

April 13, 2018

Touchdown

12:58 AM CDT (05:58 UTC)

Lifted

1:04 AM CDT (06:04 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

2.9 miles (4.7 km)

Path width

500 yards (457 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$15,000

County

Webster Parish

Touchdown point

32.942, -93.317

Lift-off point

32.974, -93.284

Record number

1804132358-01

62 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS SHV, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 94 mph.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

A strong upper level trough of low pressure progressed east across the Southern Plains during the afternoon of April 13th, with a large warm sector of warm/humid air having expanded north across much of the Ark-La-Tex. A capping inversion delayed the onset of thunderstorm development until the late afternoon, where it eroded and large scale forcing increased with shortwave perturbations ahead of the trough and along/just ahead of a dry line as it mixed east to the Interstate 35 corridor or North and Central Texas. Given the moderate instability and strong wind shear that developed with the lead shortwave, scattered supercell thunderstorms developed across Northcentral Louisiana during the late afternoon through mid evening hours, producing numerous reports of damaging winds, and several tornadoes/funnel cloud reports. While a lull in the storms was observed, a line of severe thunderstorms developed along the dryline south of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, and progressed east into East Texas by late evening, and across North Louisiana after midnight on April 14th. Damaging winds and reports of hail were prevalent at first with this line of severe thunderstorms, but a number of notches developed along the squall line as these storms crossed into North Louisiana, resulting in several tornadoes touching down across areas along and north of the Interstate 20 corridor from Shreveport to Monroe. Of particular interest, the initial string of tornadoes first touched down just west of the Texas/Louisiana state line along the Harrison/Panola County line, with this supercell producing two separate tornadoes as it entered Shreveport. In fact, the tornado remained on the ground across much of western and central Shreveport, moving across the northern fringes of the property at the National Weather Service Office before moving across the Queensborough and Allendale neighborhoods and across Downtown Shreveport, before tracking across much of Bossier City along and just north of Interstate 20, crossing Interstate 220, and across the Red Chute and Princeton communities before lifting just west of the Bossier/Webster Parish line. These severe thunderstorms exited North Louisiana just after 3 am on the 14th.

This is the continuation of the Northeast Bossier Parish tornado. This EF-0 tornado, with estimated maximum winds near 80 mph, continued northeast traveling across Highway 2 in Sarepta uprooting a few trees, before eventually crossing Highway 371 just north of Sarepta where most of the damage occurred. Several trees were uprooted and snapped in this area especially along North Main Street, with a tree falling on a home, before the tornado lifted.

An EF-1 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 95 mph touched down just west of Shongaloo along Highway 2 where it uprooted several trees. It continued northeast causing sporadic tree damage along Highway 159. The tornado then intensified as it approached Highway 615, where it uprooted and snapped several trees and snapped numerous large limbs between the intersections of Highway 615 and Red Oak Road, and Highway 615 and Barge Road, before lifting just to the northeast.

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

15 minutes of warning. NWS SHV issued a tornado warning for this county at 05:43 UTC, 15 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 06:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 02:54 UTC and running to 06:57 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 00:55 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.

Minden (MNE), 35 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Shreveport radar (KSHV), 76 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 05:55 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.

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 2018 tornado in LouisianaEvery tornado in Louisiana since 1950Warnings in force in Louisiana nowThe forecast where you are

22 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.