EF1 tornado, Boyce to Mc Neeley, Louisiana, March 4, 2025

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 4, 2025

Touchdown

11:50 AM CST (17:50 UTC)

Lifted

11:57 AM CST (17:57 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

6.8 miles (10.9 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$270,000

Counties

Rapides and Grant parishes

Touchdown point

31.378, -92.698

Lift-off point

31.394, -92.644

Record number

2503041150-01

4 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LCH, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 93 mph.

• Tornado crosses the Red River at this point. We can see weak tree damage on the Grant Parish side of the River
• Damage to homes as it crossed Highway 1.
• Damage to homes. Several outbuildings destroyed in the middle of Boyce.

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

A strong low pressure system moved across the plains during early March. The associated cold front and upper disturbance triggered severe weather over Louisiana during Mardi Gras.

A very mature squall line developed along and ahead of an advancing cold front across the Ark-La-Tex region during the late morning through the afternoon hours on March 4th. Damaging wind gusts were the primary threat with this squall line, but numerous strong mesovorticies became embedded within this quasi-linear convective system (QLCS). Dew points were in the mid to upper 60s with over 500 J/kg of MLCAPE and 450 m2/s2 of 0-1 km storm relative helicity (SRH). As temperatures continued to warm into the lower 70s with MLCAPE increasing to around 1000 J/kg MLCAPE, the increasing threat of supercell thunderstorm development only heightened the tornado threat into the afternoon. As a result, numerous reports of damaging straight-line wind gusts and several tornadoes were documented across North Louisiana along with isolated flash flooding.

The Boyce Tornado began in a field to the southwest of I-49 in Rapides Parish, where powerlines were removed from transmission towers. The tornado continued northeast crossing I-49 and damaged homes as it crossed HWY 1. It proceeded northeast into the town of Boyce, damaging several more homes, destroying outbuildings, and damaging various trees in the middle of Boyce. The tornado then continued further northeast, crossing the Red River into Shreveport's CWA. Weak tree occurred on the north side of the Red River in Grant Parish, until it lifted around 11:57 AM. Max estimated winds were 90 mph.

This is the continuation of the EF-1 tornado that began in a field to the southwest of Interstate 49 in Rapides Parish just southwest of the Boyce community. This tornado, with estimated maximum winds near 90 mph tracked through Boyce, across the Red River and into extreme Southwest Grant Parish, where several small trees were snapped and uprooted on the north side of the Red River along Aaron Slayter Plantation Road before the tornado finally lifted. The tornado had a maximum width of 100 yards and tracked for approximately 1.3 miles across extreme Southwest Grant Parish before lifting.

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

25 minutes of warning. NWS LCH issued a tornado warning for this county at 17:25 UTC, 25 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 18:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 14:15 UTC and running to 19:47 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 16:24 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.

Alexandria International/England Afb (AEX), 12 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Ft Polk radar (KPOE), 39 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 17:53 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 2025 tornado in LouisianaEvery tornado in Louisiana since 1950Warnings in force in Louisiana nowThe forecast where you are

36 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.