How Has YOUR March Chasing Been?

[Adam Lucio]

Ive has several good chases during March but never bagged a tornado. I like early season setups and am always ready to gamble on them. I cant stand how people bitch about how crowded the roads are during peak season...well what do you expect?

If you want secluded roads and storms to yourself then learn how to gamble on early season setups. Just because its not 85/75 with 5000+ cape doesn't mean there wont be possible tornadoes. Years like this though make me question why I have so much faith in the setups, but again...anything is possible.

 

[Jason Foster]

Around here...still more likely to chase snow storms (chase snow storms...LOL...let's use 'intercept' instead). Last year had a decent storm around the 1st of the month. 1993 gave us the superstorm around the middle of the month. This is where a long distance person like me just has to realize they will likely never see a March set-up in the plains or other good chase areas.

 

[MatthewCarman]

Ive has several good chases during March but never bagged a tornado. I like early season setups and am always ready to gamble on them. I cant stand how people bitch about how crowded the roads are during peak season...well what do you expect?

If you want secluded roads and storms to yourself then learn how to gamble on early season setups. Just because its not 85/75 with 5000+ cape doesn't mean there wont be possible tornadoes. Years like this though make me question why I have so much faith in the setups, but again...anything is possible.

It seems like one reason people do not chase the early setup's is because of the speed the storms are moving. I hear storm chasers talk about early season storms moving at 60-70 MPH. It is hard to keep up with storms moving that fast. I could be wrong though. I don't know if every early season outbreak is like that.

 

[Greg Blumberg]

Best day in March had to be March 30th, 2008. 2 supercells in SW Oklahoma tracking towards the NE. Got some of the best photographs I've ever taken from that day. In fact, one of those pictures is my avatar.

 

[mikedeason]

Best March chase for me was, unfortunately, my last chase west of the Mississippi. It was definitely one I will never forget though.

Here is Darin's report from 3/12/2006.

 

[Dave Marshall]

I chased central Georgia for 6 years until this past summer when I moved north. The last two weeks of February and the first two weeks of March were always spectacularly productive down there. I caught tornadoes on three consecutive years between February 16th and 18th, all within about 20 miles of the same point. It has been pretty quiet down there this year (snow does that, I guess), so I'm not missing too much up being up here. I sure do miss those good early spring chases though!

The only problem I ran into with the early season stuff down there was the total lack of discrete storm structure. It was almost always buried deep in overrunning precip, or they'd run in line segments and packs. Makes for a hairy approach and limited visibility, especially given the heavy forests in that area.

 

[Paul Hadfield]

Of the events people talk about over time, seems like everyone remembers were they were on March 12, 2006. Here are a few of the better things I have scored in March...

March 31, 2009 - Daughter and I follow an unusually thin line of photogenic storms (video).

March 8, 2009 - Rocket Storms (I think Skip and Adam did well considering)(video).

March 23, 2008 - Convective snow squalls on Easter (video).

March 1, 2007 - Squall line with EF0 tornado.

March 12, 2006 - The historic long track supercell (video).

March 30, 2005 - Squall line on day of moderate risk (Skip was all over this event).

Unrelated to any storm but significant for illustrating the flash freeze that occurred behind a rain event, March 11, 2009 yielded my first and only ice spikes.

Tony - Scrolling through Dann's Blog for 2009 now that you've mentioned past Marches, you guys DID manage to take top prize for the 21st

 

[Shane Adams]

I'd have to look up my hand-written stats to get the number of overall March chases (at work and tried to recall them from memory but I've been doing this too long for that anymore), but I've had six tornado days in March:

March 7, 2000 (1) http://www.passiontwist.com/3700chase.htm
March 22, 2000 (1) http://www.passiontwist.com/32200chase.htm
March 27, 2004 (4) http://www.passiontwist.com/32704chase.htm
March 30, 2006 (2) http://www.passiontwist.com/33006chase.htm
March 30, 2008 (2) http://www.passiontwist.com/33008chase.htm
March 23, 2009 (1) http://www.passiontwist.com/32309chase.htm

Make that seven

March 8, 2010 (3) http://www.passiontwist.com/3810chase.htm

 

[Chris C Sanner]

Make that seven

March 8, 2010 (3) http://www.passiontwist.com/3810chase.htm

Well played, I thought about this as I read your original post

I've had some excellent successes in March, not sure if it's more pure dumb luck or something else, but I always seem to score at least once every March. Now April....I've got some kind of a weird voodoo hex against me since I've only had one tornado day in April since I've started chasing, and that came LAST year on the 26th.

 

[Brian Stertz]

March has been basically a dud from me for any interesting tornadoes. Seen small ones and most at night it seems. Seem to have much better luck as April goes along.

 

[Jason Boggs]

March was good to me in 07, and March has been great to me so far in 2010!

Tornado near Brice, TX on 3/28/07

Tornado near Hammon, OK on 3/8/10

 

[Bob Hartig]

Beautiful shots, Jason. That second one of the Hammon tornado is a real coup.

I've had limited success in March--just two tornado days, but one of them was outstanding. That was March 12, 2006. My buddy and I intercepted a tornadic supercell near Columbia, MO, that had formed in Oklahoma, and we tracked with it through four states all the way back to Michigan. We'd have driven right into a night-time tornado in Springfield, IL, if we hadn't pulled over to scope out the sky.

 

[Darrin Rasberry]

I've caught a few tornado-warned storms in March, but no tubes yet (surprisingly, none for April as well). Biggest hail I've ever caught was in March, though - in between baseballs and softballs in March '08.