Tornadoes · United States · Louisiana · 2019

EF0 tornado, Creole, Louisiana, June 5, 2019

This EF0 tornado ran 0.2 miles across Cameron Parish on June 5, 2019, touching down at 9:40 PM CDT and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $5,000 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.

  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
June 5, 2019
Touchdown
9:40 PM CDT (02:40 UTC)
Lifted
9:42 PM CDT (02:42 UTC)
On the ground
2 minutes
Path length
0.2 miles (0.4 km)
Path width
50 yards (46 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$5,000
County
Cameron Parish
Touchdown point
29.785, -93.099
Lift-off point
29.787, -93.097
Record number
1906052040-01

The damage survey

5 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LCH, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 85 mph.

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

Deep moisture streamed into the area ahead of an upper level trough and weak cold front. Precipitable water values ranged from 2 to 2.5 with the slow moving system which caused efficient rain producing storms and lead to flash flooding. Several tornadoes also occurred.

The tornado began in the marsh just south of Highway 82 and moved |northwest. Half of a tin roof was removed from a shed and multiple|trees had broken limbs. The tornado dissipated after moving over a |pond northeast of the shed. Max estimated wind speed was 85 mph.

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
12:00 UTC12:38 UTCFlash Flood WatchLCH
01:31 UTC01:45 UTCTornado WarningLCH
02:04 UTC02:30 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningLCH
02:11 UTC06:15 UTCFlash Flood WarningLCH
04:00 UTC04:43 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningLCH
04:04 UTC04:30 UTCTornado WarningLCH
04:17 UTC08:15 UTCFlash Flood WarningLCH
04:26 UTC04:45 UTCTornado WarningLCH
08:04 UTC11:00 UTCFlash Flood WarningLCH
08:33 UTC09:00 UTCTornado WarningLCH
11:36 UTC13:30 UTCFlash Flood WarningLCH

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 00:48 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), 00:00Z

2.7 hours before the tornado, 38 km from the path. June 6, 2019.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lake Charles Mun, LA at 00:00Z on 2019-06-06Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 100 joules per kilogram, CIN -137, lifted condensation level 677 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 2019-06-06The 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 104 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 33 knots.1939Sfc1 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
100 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-137 J/kg
Surface CAPE
17 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
677 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
33 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
12 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
104 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
199 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.4
0-3 km lapse rate
3.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Lake Charles Mun, LA (KLCH), 12:00Z

9.3 hours after it, 38 km from the path. June 6, 2019.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lake Charles Mun, LA at 12:00Z on 2019-06-06Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 322 joules per kilogram, CIN -138, lifted condensation level 581 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 2019-06-06The 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 -45 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 12 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
322 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-138 J/kg
Surface CAPE
2 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
581 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
12 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
26 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-45 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-24 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Lake Charles radar (KLCH), 39 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:40 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
02:40 UTCTORNADO 01 Se CreoleCameron, LAA TORNADO DAMAGED A LARGE SHED AND MULTIPLE TREES ALONG THE OAK GROVE HIGHWAY JUST EAST OF SOUTH CAMERON HIGH SCHOOL.
05:34 UTCTORNADO 14 Se WelshJefferson Davis, LAA TORNADO TRAVELED NORTH ALONG SOUTH MAIN STREET NEAR ROANOKE. MULTIPLE TREES WERE DAMAGED ALONG WITH ROOFING OF ONE HOME AND THE ROOF OF A LARGE SHED.

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

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2019 tornado in LouisianaEvery tornado in Louisiana since 1950Warnings in force in Louisiana nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of June 5, 2019

4 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
June 52:10 PM EDTEF0Henry, OH0.410
June 54:57 PM EDTEF0Crawford, OH1.250$20,000
June 56:26 PM EDTEF1Muskingum, OH2.850
June 512:34 AM CDTEF1Jefferson Davis Parish, LA1.6100$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.