EF0 tornado, Elysian Flds to Shreveport Downtown, Texas, April 13, 2018

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.

Rating

EF0

Date

April 13, 2018

Touchdown

11:50 PM CDT (04:50 UTC)

Lifted

12:04 AM CDT (05:04 UTC)

On the ground

14 minutes

Path length

10.5 miles (16.8 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$6,000

Counties

Caddo and Harrison counties

Touchdown point

32.387, -94.105

Lift-off point

32.431, -93.934

Record number

1804132250-01

109 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 110 mph.

• Destroyed advertisement sign

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

A strong upper level trough of low pressure progressed east across the Southern Plains during the afternoon of April 13th, with a large warm sector of warm/humid air having expanded north across much of the Ark-La-Tex. A capping inversion delayed the onset of thunderstorm development until the late afternoon, where it eroded and large scale forcing increased with shortwave perturbations ahead of the trough and along/just ahead of a dry line as it mixed east to the Interstate 35 corridor or North and Central Texas. Given the moderate instability and strong wind shear that developed with the lead shortwave, scattered supercell thunderstorms developed across East Texas during the late afternoon through the evening hours, producing numerous reports of damaging winds and large hail. While a lull in the storms was observed, a line of severe thunderstorms developed along the dryline south of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, and progressed east into East Texas by late evening. Damaging winds and reports of hail were prevalent at first with this line of severe thunderstorms, but a number of notches developed along the squall line as these storms moved into extreme Eastern Texas, resulting in two tornadoes touching down across Northern Gregg and Northwest Harrison Counties, as well as extreme Southeastern Harrison County near the Caddo Parish Louisiana line. These severe thunderstorms exited East Texas by midnight on the 14th.

A strong upper level trough of low pressure progressed east across the Southern Plains during the afternoon of April 13th, with a large warm sector of warm/humid air having expanded north across much of the Ark-La-Tex. A capping inversion delayed the onset of thunderstorm development until the late afternoon, where it eroded and large scale forcing increased with shortwave perturbations ahead of the trough and along/just ahead of a dry line as it mixed east to the Interstate 35 corridor or North and Central Texas. Given the moderate instability and strong wind shear that developed with the lead shortwave, scattered supercell thunderstorms developed across Northcentral Louisiana during the late afternoon through mid evening hours, producing numerous reports of damaging winds, and several tornadoes/funnel cloud reports. While a lull in the storms was observed, a line of severe thunderstorms developed along the dryline south of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, and progressed east into East Texas by late evening, and across North Louisiana after midnight on April 14th. Damaging winds and reports of hail were prevalent at first with this line of severe thunderstorms, but a number of notches developed along the squall line as these storms crossed into North Louisiana, resulting in several tornadoes touching down across areas along and north of the Interstate 20 corridor from Shreveport to Monroe. Of particular interest, the initial string of tornadoes first touched down just west of the Texas/Louisiana state line along the Harrison/Panola County line, with this supercell producing two separate tornadoes as it entered Shreveport. In fact, the tornado remained on the ground across much of western and central Shreveport, moving across the northern fringes of the property at the National Weather Service Office before moving across the Queensborough and Allendale neighborhoods and across Downtown Shreveport, before tracking across much of Bossier City along and just north of Interstate 20, crossing Interstate 220, and across the Red Chute and Princeton communities before lifting just west of the Bossier/Webster Parish line. These severe thunderstorms exited North Louisiana just after 3 am on the 14th.

An EF-0 tornado with estimated maximum winds around 75 mph touched down along FM 9 and FM 451 in extreme Southeast Harrison County just north of the Panola County line, where it broke several large branches from a few trees. The tornado continued east northeast just north of County Road 1220 where it continued to break large branches from trees. It also blew the roof off of a small barn before crossing over into Western Caddo Parish.

This is a continuation of the Southern Harrison County Texas tornado. This EF-0 tornado, with estimated maximum winds near 80 mph, moved east where it snapped large tree branches from a few trees as it crossed Elysian Fields Road. This tornado continued east northeast where it uprooted a tree along Highway 79 that knocked down power lines, and snapped several large branches from trees along Shirley Francis Road. This tornado also uprooted trees and snapped large branches just southeast of Greenwood before lifting along Waterwood Drive.

A strong EF-1 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 105 mph touched down just west of Highway 3132 and Interstate 20 on Dixie Boulevard, where it uprooted a few trees. The tornado continued east northeast crossing Highway 3132 snapping several large branches from trees along and just north of the National Weather Service Shreveport office but across the northern fringes of the Shreveport Regional Airport, before crossing Hollywood Avenue and tearing off portions of the roofs of three hotels on Monkhouse Drive near Interstate 20. Portions of the roof off of the Shreveport Fire Department Station #16 near the entrance of the Shreveport Regional Airport was also ripped off, and several nearby trees were uprooted as well. The tornado paralleled Interstate 20 where it uprooted trees and damaged a few billboard signs. The tornado then shifted north northeast crossing Jewella Avenue near Jackson Street where it began to cause significant tree damage in this area. The tornado swelled to around 800 yards wide where it uprooted and snapped numerous trees along a 13 block path east northeast to the vicinity of the intersection of Hearne Avenue and Lakeshore Drive in the Queensborough neighborhood. Major structural damage occurred to a two-story home at the 2600 block of Stonewall Street when a large tree was uprooted and fell onto the home in Queensborough. Additional major structural damage occurred to the Galilee Learning Center at the 1600 block of Gary Street in Queensborough as well. The tornado continued northeast into Downtown Shreveport causing sporadic tree damage before crossing the Red River into Downtown Bossier City.

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 02:54 UTC and running to 05:47 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 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 00:55 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.

The Shreveport radar (KSHV), 17 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:47 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 2018 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

22 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.