A viral post from East Texas, shared more than 20,000 times, claimed a tornado struck Longview Wednesday, causing the major damage and widespread power outages.
However, is the picture real? Was there a tornado in Longview Wednesday?
Let's start with the viral post that was shared more than 25,000 times by Thursday evening. The person making the post claimed it was a tornado.
A CBS 19 investigation determined the picture did not originate with that post.
Instead, it came from Douglas Wells, who did not say it was a tornado.
"The clouds just kinda looked mean," Wells told CBS 19. "I had no idea that I was looking at what people would have considered a funnel cloud, you know, but apparently, that's what everybody saw."
Meteorologist Matthew Duplantis with the National Weather Service in Shreveport agrees the picture did not show a tornado.
"My first inclination would be that picture is of a shelf cloud," Duplantis said. "I saw so many pictures just like that from yesterday that were not tornadic."
The NWS instead identifies the image that appears to be a tornado as a downdraft or rain shaft in combination with a shelf cloud.
So how do we know the picture is not a tornado?
First, if a tornado the size of the one that appears to be in this photo actually hit Longview, the damage would likely be substantial, and debris would be tossed into the sky.
While, there was rotation near Longview Wednesday, there was nothing on the radar over the Longview area that indicated a tornado was on the ground.
According to Meteorologist Mario Valverde with the National Weather Service, while there was rotation on the radar, nothing about it looked to be tornadic.
Additionally, the National Weather Service confirmed Thursday evening that the storm produced a straight-line wind event, not a tornado. These winds reached a peak of 90 mph.
While the NWS did not confirm a tornado in Longview, the NWS did confirm an EF-1 tornado north of Marshall in Harrison County. There were also eight other confirmed tornadoes in Louisiana associated with the storm.
So here's what can confirm.
First, the picture is real.
Second, the picture is not of a tornado.
Third, there was rotation in Wednesday's storm when it moved through the Longview area, however the radar did not indicate it was tornadic.
Finally, the NWS confirmed Thursday that there were no tornadoes in the Longview area.
That being said, we do not know if the picture itself showed any rotation, as we would need video to confirm that, but what we can confirm regardless of this fact is that this photo was, again, not showing a tornado.
