National Weather Service Says 66 Tornadoes Hit the Ark-La-Tex in 2024

The National Weather Service in Shreveport has issued a very detailed report on all of the tornado activity that impacted the Ark-La-Tex region during 2024. This information not only includes a count of how many tornadoes touched down in the region, but the date, time, and a detailed description for each storm's path.

According to the data, there were 66 tornadoes that touched down across the region.

The region they're covering, is generally described as the Ark-La-Tex. This region is mainly centered around Shreveport, Louisiana but also includes East Texas and Southern Arkansas. For the purposes of the National Weather Service, they also include the south eastern corner of Oklahoma in this region. Areas like Broken Bow and Beavers Bend State Park.

Inside the report, the National Weather Service goes storm-by-storm to detail the tornado's path, start time, distance traveled, and wind speeds. No matter how small the tornado was, they included it.

For example, one of the tornadoes they tracked on May 5th, 2024 in Lockesburg, Arkansas was only on the ground for 20 yards. The storm achieved an EF0 rating with windspeeds of 65 mph. This tornado would likely have never been tracked, if not for video evidence gathered by the Sevier County Office of Emergency Management. The only damaged reported by this tornado was tree damage, shingles torn off a roof, and a small portion of a detached carport was torn off.

While they included even the smallest tornadoes reported during the year, they also included the biggest, and deadliest.

This includes an EF2 tornado that traveled for over 50 miles through Bossier Parish. The storm was on the ground for over 90 mins and achieved winds speeds over 115 mph. This massive tornado resulted in multiple injuries, and one death. It started in the very northern section of Red River Parish, and stayed on the ground through Bossier Parish and ended just west of Plain Dealing, Louisiana.

The massive Bossier Parish storm was part of the tornado outbreak brought on by Tropical Storm Beryl on July 8th, 2024. During this outbreak, more than half of the year's tornado count for the region were spawned. There were 43 tornadoes produced in the region during the Beryl outbreak.

Of the Parishes and Counties that suffered tornado damage during 2024, there were only 3 who saw 8 or more tornadoes. Bossier and Sabine Parishes both counted 8 each, while De Soto Parish had 14 tornadoes.

You can see the comprehensive breakdown of all the 2024 tornadoes in the Ark-La-Tex here.