The most tornado prone spot in Louisiana ...

As part of an ongoing tornado research project, by means of the Site Assessment of Tornado Threat (SATT) 3.0 software, and based on National Weather Service data from 1950 through 2006, the VorTek staff have determined the most tornado-prone point in Louisiana, originally identified in February 2007, remains at latitude 32o 30’ N, longitude 93o 33’ W, which corresponds to a point inside Barksdale AFB, 0.48 mile south of East Gate Road, 0.96 mile west of the East Fence of Barksdale AFB. During the 57-year period noted, 95 tornado track segments have touched down or passed within 20 miles of this point. This includes five F0 tornadoes, forty-nine F1, sixteen F2, nineteen F3, and six F4. If the total land area disturbed by these tornadoes is divided by the land area within the 20-mile circle, on an annual basis the average fraction of land disturbed (or Annual Coverage Fraction) equals 9.1671 x 10-4 or 0.091671%, which is the largest value for any point within Louisiana.

In fact very recently I tracked a supercell through that area on radar which dropped a tornado in Shreveport. The tornado eventually went through Barksdale. Below are the Storm Relative Velocity images from that night before it made it into the city. Its hard to appreciate how incredible these images are and how fortunate Shreveport was in avoiding a significant night-time disaster. Thank God for that!


Apr 9, 2009 9:54 PM

Apr 9, 2009 9:59 PM

Apr 9, 2009 10:04 PM


Apr 9, 2009 Shreveport hook echo

Apr 9, 2009 Shreveport velocity couplet

It was part of a small outbreak that saw 12 tornadoes in the ArkLaTex area.