March arrived with a big entrance this year. As fierce as the basketball competition is this year for the NCAA, the weather created more of an uproar than the NCAA did. March 2-3 was one of the largest March tornado outbreaks in recorded history. A total of 1,010 preliminary storm reports were recorded most of which were recorded on March 2nd. Of those 1,010 reports 175 of them were tornado reports, 364 were wind reports 10 of which were confirmed to be 65 knots or greater (75 mph or greater), and 471 reports of hail which 52 of them were confirmed to be 2" and larger. As mentioned in the 2012 Leap Day Tornado Outbreak these preliminary reports are not the actual total of tornadoes, wind damage, and hail. Just the number of reports that have been called in from either trained storm spotters, law enforcements, and/or any other citizen. Here are the images of the reports for March 2nd and March 3rd.
What has been confirmed so far is 61 tornadoes stretching from the Ohio River down to Florida. The confirmed amount is mentioned on Wikipedia. Out of the 61 confirmed tornadoes 18 of those were EF0 (65-85 mph), 16 EF1 (86-110 mph), 16 EF2 (111-135 mph), 9 EF3 (136-165 mph), and 2 EF4 (166-200 mph). This event was accurately forecasted ahead of time and warned heavily as the following image shows all 654 warnings that were issued, 279 of them being tornado warnings.
Pretty impressive amount of warnings for just one day. Unfortunately, with all the warnings and lead time there were still 41 deaths that were confirmed making this outbreak the second deadliest in March on record.
The two EF4 tornadoes were reported in Kentucky and Indiana one around the Crittenden, Kentucky area and the other carved a path from Fredericksburg, Indiana to Bedford, Kentucky where Henryville, Indiana was in the middle the path and nearly whipped out. Here is a radar image of the Crittenden tornado:
The spiral with the small yellow orange spot is where the center of the tornado is. What is really fascinating is to see such a large rotation within that storm without any precipitation interfering with the image. Here is a radar image of the tornado that was in southern Indiana and moved into Kentucky:
You can see New Perkin within the green colors and the tornado is just southwest of that where you see shades of pink in a near ball-shape. That ball shape is known as a debris ball. To see full details and images of this tornado go to the following site: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/Image/lmk/03022012_EF4.htm
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