Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 31: More !%&#&% twisters

In March 2020 the southeast US was under an area of high pressure, which combined with calm weather to cause higher than normal temperatures and a quick warming of the waters in the Gulf of Mexico. This also created higher humidity near the water's surface, and the warm, moist air created instability where it interacted with the high pressure system. 

The result? Tornadoes. Lots of tornadoes.

Over the course of Easter weekend (April 12-13), at least 141 tornadoes touched down over 10 states, from Texas to Maryland. Monroe, Louisiana may have had the worst storm of the bunch, which didn't cause any fatalities but did a quarter billion dollars in damage. Mississippi saw the strongest storms of the outbreak - they were the only state to record storms at EF4 - and had the most deaths of any state, tallying 14 of the 38 attributed to the storms.

And, of course, this outbreak happened during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, so relief and recovery efforts were hampered by social distancing requirements and the demand for PPE.