Episode narrative: Late during the evening of June 15th, regional radar analysis showed several clusters of severe thunderstorms ongoing along the middle Red River Valley into Northeast Texas. The eastern-most cluster displayed signs of cold pool intensification and developed a bowing structure. Observational trends farther downstream favored a continued motion along the instability gradient to the southeast through midnight into the early morning hours on June 16th. Given the background wind fields and buoyancy were still quite strong, the threat of damaging winds upwards of 75+ mph and large hail increased as the complex moved into far Northeast Texas and Northwest Louisiana just after midnight.

Farther west near the Red River, additional storm development occurred along the trailing outflow. Less organized than the eastern cluster, individual storms, including a few supercells, eventually evolved and remained semi-discrete for a few hours. Given the more cellular nature, large hail was a threat initially with the amount of instability upwards of 5000 J/kg and 60 knots of effective shear. A greater risk of damaging winds gradually evolved as storms remained organized and grew upscale overnight.

As a result, large hail up to 2+ inches in diameter eventually occurred in some storms followed by an intense bow echo, resulting in widespread severe winds and even some hurricane-force gusts, setting the stage for initiating a derecho-type event across much of Northeast Texas and North Louisiana. In addition, an isolated tornado also occurred near the Texas/Louisiana state line on the south flank of the extreme derecho winds.

Tornado event in CADDO County, LOUISIANA
Start: 16-JUN-23 00:20:00
End: 16-JUN-23 00:25:00
Direct deaths: 0
Property damage: 50.00K
Event narrative: A strong line of thunderstorms moved through East Texas and Northwest Louisiana during the early morning hours on June 16th. As it moved through East Texas and into the Shreveport metro area, the storm begin to take on a bow shape, indicating that the system would likely produce strong straight line winds. As the storm reached near the Texas/Louisiana state line from Panola County into southwest Caddo Parish, it produced a brief EF-1 tornado with maximum wind gusts of 110 mph, a path width of nearly 850 yards, and path length of nearly six miles in far southwest Caddo Parish. 

With a storm already producing widespread straight-line wind damage, it became difficult to determine what was tornadic and what was straight-line winds. It was determined that the tornado touched down to the west of County Road 322 in Panola County where a large tree fell onto a single family home. The tornado then moved to the southeast across the Texas/Louisiana state line towards Johns Gin Road where it produced widespread tree damage all along Johns Gin Road north of Keatchie Marshall Road. From there, the tornado moved through a neighborhood to the west of Four  Forks Road just north of Keatchie Marshall Road where a number of trees were either uprooted or snapped. This same area was just struck by a tragic tornado in December 2022. The tornado then tracked to the southeast along Keatchie Marshall Road where damage became more sparse and then lifted just to the west of Preston Road.