Second major severe weather and tornado outbreak of 2007...

...developed on Wednesday, March 28 over portions of the Texas/Oklahoma panhandles, western Kansas and Nebraska, and eastern Colorado. Major March outbreaks are not unheard of (a la March 1 this year, March 12 last year, March 27, 1994 and March 13, 1990 to name a few) but what was unusual was for it to take place so far west. The other outbreaks listed all happened in either the Southeast, the Mississippi Valley, or the eastern Plains.

Wednesday marked the first highly sucessful chase day for a lot of Plains chasers, and unfortunately resulted in four deaths, numerous injuries and quite a bit of property damage. At least two tornadoes have been rated EF3, and that number will probably grow. However, it wasn't as bad as it could have been due to the relatively sparse population of the region. There were many reports of large tornadoes in open country that would have caused major disasters had they hit towns or cities.

NWS Surveys and Write-Ups
Pueblo, CO
Dodge City, KS
Goodland, KS
North Platte, NE (1)
North Platte, NE (2)
Amarillo, TX
Lubbock, TX

Storm Chaser Reports
Scott Blair
Jason Boggs
Simon Brewer
Jason Brock
Verne Carlson
Brian Emfinger
George Flickinger
J.R. Hehnly
Mike Hollingshead
Caleb Kimbrough
Amos Magliocco
Gene Moore
Eric Nguyen
Michael O'Keeffe
Russel Parsons
Putnam Reiter
Brett Roberts
Chris Rozoff
Dean Schoeneck
Jeff Snyder
Bill Tabor
Skip Talbot
Justin Walker
Dustin Wilcox

A smaller outbreak hit eastern New Mexico on March 23, and isolated tornadoes occurred on the days preceding and following March 28. Wisconsin got its first tornadoes of the year today (March 31) in the far southwestern part of the state. Links related to those events coming later...