EF1 tornado, Farmerville Arpt to Linville, Louisiana, March 30, 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 30, 2021

Touchdown

8:54 PM CDT (01:54 UTC)

Lifted

8:56 PM CDT (01:56 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

1.2 miles (1.9 km)

Path width

105 yards (96 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$30,000

County

Union Parish

Touchdown point

32.748, -92.260

Lift-off point

32.762, -92.249

Record number

2103301954-01

18 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 104 mph.

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

A warm front lifted north across North Louisiana and into Southern Arkansas during the afternoon and evening of March 30th, ahead of an upper trough and associated cold front that ejected through the Southern Plains and into the Lower Mississippi Valley. Moderate instability developed at the surface and aloft near this warm front, with large scale forcing ahead of the trough/cold front contributing to the development of scattered showers and a few thunderstorms over Southcentral Arkansas and portions of Northcentral Louisiana. Ample deep layer shear and enough directional shear near the warm front contributed to an isolated supercell thunderstorm developing during the evening over East-Central Union Parish, which produced an isolated short-lived tornado east of Farmerville. This storm eventually weakened as it moved into Western Morehouse Parish.

An EF1 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 105 mph touched down near the intersection of Highway 2 and Les Parker Road near the Nolan Place subdivision. A small metal outbuilding was destroyed and large branches were broken while sporadic trees were snapped and uprooted. As the tornado continued northeast toward Joe Kennedy Road, it widened and intensified, snapping numerous hardwood and softwood trees along its path. The tornado caused minor shingle damage to one single family home along Joe Kennedy Road, while also snapping and uprooting trees before lifting along a hunting road north of Joe Kennedy Road.

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.

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 Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:50 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.

Monroe Regional (MLU), 34 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Shreveport radar (KSHV), 152 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:54 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

3 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.