The March weather madness began even before the first bracket was filled out for the NCAA tourney. January was a month of battles between warm & cold which led to increased severe weather activity in the middle portion of the nation. The normally mild mannered month of February went rouge warm on much of the eastern U.S. bringing with it increased T-Storm activity and trails of damage. The latest round of storms has been fueled by favorable Gulf winds & a diving jet stream twisting the lower atmosphere into violent vortices.
15 twisters swirled above Texas towns Tuesday several communities into clean up mode this morning. The total number of twisters in 2017 has now reached 400 placing this year near the top of the list for active tornado seasons. The early start shows no signs of stopping today as the storm system slides to the east along the Mississippi River bringing a combination of wind, hail and tornados from just south of Chicago to the Gulf of Mexico.
Entering spring , the severe weather action moves into the Tennessee Valley igniting the skies and elevating the risk of more damage and fatalities to an already high total. Here in WNY the severe weather season gets going later than in Tornado Alley, but we will have to keep an eye on advancing storm systems during the month of April if this uptick in twisters continues.
