Tornado Outbreak of March 17th-18th, 2025

The Tornado Outbreak of March 17th-18th, 2025 was a record breaking tornado outbreak that brought widespread tornadic activity on the Southern Plains and then to the Ohio River Valley and eastern United States. Several strong to violent tornadoes occurred, some of them becoming the longest tracked tornadoes ever recorded and some of the worst tornadoes on record.

March 17th
On March 16th, after a week of above average temperatures for much of the central and southern United States, a vigorous upper level trough moved south from Canada to the eastern Rocky Mountains. Heavy snowfall and blizzard conditions struck cities like Denver and Cheyenne as a surface low developed over northeastern New Mexico. During the morning of March 17th, the low positioned itself over Liberal, Kansas and deepened quickly, shooting warm moist air as far north as Wichita and Joplin and pushing cold air as far south as Amarillo and Lubbock. Unstable air reached central Oklahoma by midday east of a dryline associated with a stationary front over western Oklahoma. The 1000 to 1500 J/kg CAPE values combined with about 200 m2/s2 of 0-1km SRH made the Storm Prediction Center issue a Moderate Risk of severe weather for central Oklahoma, along Interstate 35. The outlook mentioned the high possibility of strong, long tracked supercells that would have passed over the same areas over and over because the front was stationary and this would have led to the possibility of several tornadoes tracking through the same cities and the risk of flash flooding. Just after 1:30 PM CST, storms exploded west of Oklahoma City and several rounds of supercells struck the metro and areas south of there. Single supercells, HP supercells and complexes of supercells passed over the same areas in central Oklahoma. North-central Oklahoma was speared because of morning heavy rain that prevented air to become unstable. Heavy tornado damage along with several fatalities and injuries occurred in northwestern Oklahoma City, Mustang, Moore and Norman. The hardest hit areas though were Duncan and Lindsay, struck by a powerful EF4 tornado. Severe damage occurred down south as well, in north-central Texas, as parts of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and the city of Hamilton were struck by strong tornadoes.

March 18th
After the front pushed quickly to the east-northeast, storms were swept away from the plains states and the storm system accelerated unexpectedly towards the Midwestern states. By the morning of March 18th, a very deep surface low was racing towards Saint Louis, Missouri and the jet stream reached speeds up to 105 knots (120 mph) and accelerated even more as storms fired later in the morning. Unstable air, with CAPE values up to 2000-2500 J/kg, was hardly pushed towards the Ohio and Mississippi River Valleys and 0-1 km SRH reached extreme values up to 450 m2/s2, making the perfect enviroment for a violent tornado outbreak. The SPC issued a High Risk of severe weather for south-central Illinois and surrounding areas as "a major tornado outbreak is forecast for the area". In the outlook was mentioned a very high chance of violent, very long tracked tornadoes. Paths would have been unusually long due to the unusually strong jet stream and resulted fast moving supercells.

The afternoon of March 18th, 2025 was as devastating as the 100 years precursor, if not worse as three extremely long tracked tornadoes devastated areas of eastern Missouri, central Illinois, southern Indiana, northern Kentucky and southeastern Ohio, killing hundreds of people and destroying numerous cities and towns, including Saint Louis, Paducah, Evansville, Indianapolis, Louisville and Cincinnati. Intense tornadoes struck also Tennessee and Alabama, causing more damage and harm.