EF1 tornado, Shiloh to Bayou D Arbonne Lake, Louisiana, March 17, 2021

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

March 17, 2021

Touchdown

2:26 PM CDT (19:26 UTC)

Lifted

2:33 PM CDT (19:33 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

2.6 miles (4.2 km)

Path width

766 yards (700 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$150,000

County

Union Parish

Touchdown point

32.764, -92.500

Lift-off point

32.788, -92.465

Record number

2103171326-01

16 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 95 mph.

• Truck, carport crushed by several snapped trees.
• Carport crushed, numerous trees snapped/uprooted.
• numerous trees snapped/uprooted

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

A strong closed upper low pressure system ejected northeast through the Oklahoma/Texas Panhandle region during the afternoon and evening hours of March 16th, which helped mix a dry line east across Oklahoma and Texas. Ahead of this dry line, a broad warm and moist sector spread north across the Ark-La-Tex, which allowed for greater instability to overspread into the area ahead of this surface feature. A complex of showers and thunderstorms developed over West Texas during the late afternoon through the evening hours on the 16th, before advancing east across the state during the overnight and early morning hours of the 17th. Some of these storms remained severe as they moved through East Texas around and shortly after daybreak, where damaging winds downed trees and power lines before gradually weakening as they moved into Western Louisiana. However, some of these storms re-intensified and became severe during the early afternoon across portions of North-central Louisiana, where several trees were snapped and uprooted near Dubach in Lincoln Parish, with an isolated tornado also briefly touching down just west of Farmerville in Union Parish. These storms exited the region by mid-afternoon.

An EF-1 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 95 mph touched down along Edmonds Creek, just west of Bayou D'Arbonne Lake, and moved northeast where it snapped and uprooted numerous trees and damaged a chicken house. Several trees also damaged homes, awnings, and vehicles along Stephenson Road. The tornado continued to track northeast into Lake D'Arbonne State Park, where it snapped and uprooted over 100 trees and damaged a pavilion. It continued to snap several trees along Highway 2 before lifting just north of the highway.

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

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.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:59 UTC and running to 21:57 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 16:06 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.

Ruston (RSN), 31 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Shreveport radar (KSHV), 132 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:27 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 2021 tornado in LouisianaEvery tornado in Louisiana since 1950Warnings in force in Louisiana nowThe forecast where you are

32 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.