Southern plains chasers don't blow off April. I think a lot of us
want to blow off April (in January especially!) but the fact is that there are often days of both high shear and sufficient instability and there are plenty of good chasing opportunities.
Gene Moore's archives show 10 tornadoes in April during the 1990's and 18 tornadoes in April overall, including some events like 4-10-79 and the awesome Red Rock, OK tornado of 4-26-91. There may be more that I haven't found on his site. I'm not speaking for him by any means, but Gene chases April, not infrequently from the looks of it. And if it's good enough for Gene Moore...
Those 18 tornadoes may be a small percentage of his total, but they're not a small percentage of any of
our totals, that's for sure.
March is far lower percentage, definitely. When I chase in March it's mainly to get out on the plains again and use my gear, get a feel for how things are going to shape up in the truck. I never expect to see tornadoes in March; I'm thrilled if I find a rotating storm. Most of my March chases are busts. But then sometimes
you get lucky:
![ee2e36c73ecc114b4e08091bbb44c342.jpg ee2e36c73ecc114b4e08091bbb44c342.jpg](https://stormtrack.org/data/attachments/0/656-90f8e3043671fd7da5d0eefb150493d8.jpg)
March 27, 2004
![878500643148362af93d0bd93b815baa.jpg 878500643148362af93d0bd93b815baa.jpg](https://stormtrack.org/data/attachments/0/657-a16e68e653cbd2cdfff3986a0090efd1.jpg)
March 17, 2003, this storm produced a tornado a few minutes after this photo, which my chase partners saw while looking behind us. Tim Marshall and Carson Eads caught this tornado as well.
And on March 30, 2002, Robert Hall and I chased a tornadic supercell in Comanche and Erath counties. We didn't see much that day, but on another storm that same day, Jeff Lawson and Steve Miller saw a tornado near Chalk Mountain and Brian Fant bagged one near Hico.