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 JACKSON County, LOUISIANA
Start: 02-JAN-23 16:46:00
End: 02-JAN-23 17:09:00
Direct deaths: 0
Property damage: 850.00K
Event narrative: An EF-2 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 120 mph touched down just north of the Jackson/Winn Parish line along Highway 167 and moved northeast across Firetower Section Road and Highway 147/Walker Road, where numerous trees were snapped. On Walker Road, the tornado caused roof damage to a chicken house and some manufactured homes. The most significant damage on Walker Road occurred just north of its intersection with Whitman Road where a single-wide manufactured home, which was anchored into the ground, was flipped and rolled off of its foundation, destroying most of its roof and walls, but leaving the undercarriage attached. The tornado snapped and uprooted more trees and broke a wooden electrical pole as it crossed Rome Road, Highway 4, and Strain Allen Road. On Strain Allen Road, a very large hardwood tree was snapped and a home suffered the partial loss of its metal roof. More broken limbs and snapped trunks were observed as the tornado crossed Halfway Creek and travelled north-northeast along Kelley Road. The most significant damage along the entire tornado track occurred as it crossed Highway 811/Gladway Road near its intersection with Kelley Road. Here, a brick single-family home lost most of its roof. This caused the partial failure of the walls of the garage of the home, but the majority of the home remained standing and intact. A metal garage building on this property suffered a complete loss of its walls, but most of its roof and the metal frame poles remained standing. About 150 yards to the northwest, another brick single-family home suffered almost a total loss of its roof covering. The damage in this area was rated as EF-2 based mainly on the roof loss to the two homes. On the north side of Gladway Road, a double-wide manufactured home suffered the loss of most of its roof, but the walls remained standing. An attached carport on another single-family brick residence was destroyed as the tornado continued north of Gladway Road and west of Kelley Road. This tornado continued to snap numerous trees on Kelley Road as it continued northward crossing Slash Pine Road and again crossing Kelley Road and Parish Barn Road. More tree damage was observed along Lucy-Leonard Road and Highway 155. Two brick single-family homes on Highway 155 just west of Sugar Creek suffered some loss of shingles from the roof. The tornado began to weaken rapidly and caused more minor roof damage to a single-family home and snapped some large tree branches along Stonewall Road before finally lifting. Three minor injuries were reported from this tornado, but their exact locations were not available to the survey team.