EF1 tornado, Kolter to Frierson, Louisiana, March 27, 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 27, 2021

Touchdown

8:08 PM CDT (01:08 UTC)

Lifted

8:13 PM CDT (01:13 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

3.5 miles (5.6 km)

Path width

480 yards (439 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

De Soto and Caddo parishes

Touchdown point

32.179, -93.985

Lift-off point

32.207, -93.935

Record number

2103271908-01

42 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS SHV, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 112 mph.

• Tree fell on home causing fatality

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

A longwave trough shifted east out of the Rockies and into the Central and Southern Plains during the day on March 27th, with the southwest flow ahead of the trough ejecting a series of upper level disturbances northeast across Northeast Texas, Southwest Arkansas, and Northwest Louisiana during the afternoon and evening. Meanwhile, a broad warm and moist sector had spread north across all of the Ark-La-Tex into Eastern Oklahoma and much of Arkansas ahead of this trough, with temperatures warming into the upper 70s and lower 80s areawide. This resulted in moderate instability developing as large scale forcing increased during the late afternoon through the evening hours, resulting in scattered to numerous shower and thunderstorm development across much of these areas. Increasing wind shear late in the afternoon also promoted the development of scattered severe thunderstorms over East Texas, Southwest Arkansas, and Northwest Louisiana, with various reports of damaging winds and large hail received. However, one lone supercell developed over Eastern Anderson County Texas, which produced multiple tornadoes along its track across East Texas, before eventually moving into Northern Desoto and Southeast Caddo Parishes in Northwest Louisiana. These storms eventually organized along a broken line as it pushed into North Louisiana, ahead of a cold front that shifted southeast into the area through the early morning hours of the 28th.

An EF1 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 90 mph touched down on Holmes Road between Highway 168 and Highway 172, and tracked northeast across a heavily wooded area into extreme Southwest Caddo Parish northwest of Keachi near the end of Majestic Road. The damage consisted entirely of snapped and uprooted trees.

This is a continuation of the Northwest Desoto Parish EF1 tornado northwest of Keachi. This tornado, with estimated maximum winds near 90 mph, continued to track northeast along the Caddo/Desoto Parish line across an open field just south of Majestic Road, before lifting in a heavily wooded area just beyond the triple intersection of Majestic Road, Pluto Road, and Keatchie-Marshall Road. The damage consisted entirely of snapped and uprooted trees. During the survey, it was found that tree damage was found on both the Caddo and Desoto Parish sides of the parish line. The end point was determined to be in Caddo Parish as the damage indicators depicted stronger winds on the Caddo Parish side of the parish line on Keatchie-Marshall Road.

An EF1 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 105 mph touched down in the North Desoto Estates subdivision in Stonewall, where two homes sustained moderate roof damage. The tornado continued northeast while crossing Highway 171 just north of the North Desoto Elementary/Middle/High School campus, where it crossed Ann Francis Drive. At this location, an attached garage of a home was completely destroyed after the tornadic winds compromised the garage door, removed the roof, and caused the collapse of the exterior brick walls, which were lightly mortared to the foundation. The roof was lifted nearly 30 feet into the air and thrown over a set of trees and into a field to the northeast. The remainder of the home was left relatively undamaged. The tornado continued east-northeast over open country snapping and uprooting numerous trees. It turned more to the northeast after crossing Interstate 49 and produced more consistent tree damage along Rodeo Drive just north of Stonewall-Frierson Road. Roofing was also peeled back from a small outbuilding at the north end of Rodeo Drive. The tornado continued to track northeast across a heavily wooded area before crossing the extreme southeast sections of Wallace Lake into extreme Southeast Caddo Parish.

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

29 minutes of warning. NWS SHV issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:39 UTC, 29 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:25 UTC and running to 06:00 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 01:04 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.

Mansfield (3F3), 23 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Shreveport radar (KSHV), 31 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:04 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

18 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.