Talk about a crazy month! The Storm Prediction Center rarely issues a "high risk"--- that's a level 5 (on a scale of 1-5)!
Not only did that happen this past March--but it happened twice...and poor Alabama was caught in the cross-hairs both times!
The National Weather Service (NWS) issued 36 tornado watches this past March-- which made it the 7th most tornado watches ever issued for the Month. The record amount was 49 watches, set back in 2000.
On top of that the NWS has confirmed (preliminarily) that there were 5 tornadoes that caused damage rate at EF3 or higher. That is the most for the month of March since 2012!
Despite having those two active periods last month, we are still trending middle of the pack as far as the number of tornadoes confirmed so far this year. As of March 3st, there have been 208 tornadoes confirmed in the US-- a far cry from years like 2008, when at this same point in time-- we had already confirmed over 500 tornadoes.
Here's to April being a less active month!
Cheers!
