Episode narrative: A vigorous upper level trough traversed east through the Desert Southwest and into the Southern Rockies January 1st, before ejecting northeast across the Texas/Oklahoma Panhandles into Western Kansas on the 2nd. In advance of this trough, rich low level moisture quickly spread northward from the Gulf of Mexico across East Texas, North Louisiana, and Southern Arkansas, along a strong southerly low level jet that developed ahead of a deepening surface low over Southeast Colorado and Western Kansas. With the trough taking on a more negative tilt as it ejected northeast across the Panhandle region, a dryline mixed east to the I-35 corridor of North-central Texas by early evening, and into East Texas and Eastern Oklahoma during the evening and overnight hours. Large scale forcing increased well ahead of the approaching upper trough across the expanding moist sector from the late morning through the afternoon and evening hours of the 2nd, with scattered to numerous showers and thunderstorms developing across portions of Deep East Texas, North Louisiana, and Southern Arkansas. Increasing instability due to diurnal heating within a strongly sheared and moist air mass resulted in the gradual development of strong to severe thunderstorms across these areas, with locally heavy rain falling over areas where the storms moved repeatedly over the same areas. Rainfall amounts ranged from 1-3 inches across much of North Louisiana, with isolated higher totals of 5-6+ inches observed Eastern Bienville, much of Jackson, Western Ouachita, and Eastern Union Parishes. This resulted in areas of flash flooding across portions of North Louisiana from the mid-afternoon through the early morning hours on the 3rd, with sporadic reports of damaging winds and isolated tornadoes across the region as well.

Tornado event in UNION County, LOUISIANA
Start: 02-JAN-23 18:19:00
End: 02-JAN-23 18:25:00
Direct deaths: 0
Property damage: 250.00K
Event narrative: An EF-2 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 130 mph touched down west-southwest of the Haile community, crossing Ford and Arkansas Roads in a very rural area where hardwood and softwood trees were were snapped and uprooted. The tornado continued on to the east-northeast, producing mostly tree damage as it crossed Cypress Road and Albert Barr Road. In addition, falling trees downed many power lines in this area as it moved to the northeast for two to three miles. The most significant damage occurred a little farther to the northeast as the tornado crossed Wheeler Road. At this location, there were a few collapsed electrical transmission towers which were rated as high-end EF-2 damage with estimated 130 mph winds. From here, the last few miles of the tornado tracked closer to the Haile community, crossing Highway 143, Jordan Taunton Road, Sunset Road, Haile Baptist Church Road, and Jessie Guinn Road. In these areas, the damage was again confined to mainly snapped and uprooted trees, with several homes and outbuildings heavily damaged, but mainly due to downed trees. The tornado was unique in a few ways. First, the path width was up to a half a mile in the latter portion of the track, which is very wide for a tornado which was mostly weak throughout a majority of its path. Secondly, the collapsing of the large electrical transmission towers garnered a rating up to 130 mph, but there were no other surveyed damage indicators which warranted an EF-2 rating. The survey team believes there could be other significant damage indicators near the downed transmission towers, although potentially live downed high voltage lines in the vicinity of the towers did not allow the survey team to survey in close proximity.