Most months, nearly breaking an all-time tornado record would dominate Oklahoma’s weather headlines. However, March 2025 will be remembered for a different kind of disaster—one of the worst wildfire outbreaks in state history, overshadowing all else.
Oklahoma’s weather was mostly lamb during March, although it did have its lion moments. The state experienced only one true outbreak of severe weather, but that single event on March 14 was significant nonetheless with two confirmed tornadoes in McIntosh and McCurtain counties and hail greater than softball size in Ada. Remarkably, Oklahoma had gone nearly five months without a confirmed tornado since the previous two back on October 24, 2023, in Garvin and Potawatomie counties.
Oklahoma’s oddly persistent caste-like rainfall pattern—with those to the north and west of Interstate 44 seeing near-record dryness and those to the south and east experiencing abundance—continued during March. Rainfall totals to the northwest of I-44 were generally a half-inch or less, while amounts of 5-8 inches were quite common to the southeast. Ten Oklahoma Mesonet sites in far northwest Oklahoma failed to record more than a tenth of an inch of rain for the month, with another 17 stuck below the quarter-inch line on the rain gauge.
March’s weather ran the gamut of nearly all the hazards Oklahoma has to offer, befitting a seasonal transition month in the Southern Plains. Winter got the first crack with a blast of arctic air during the month’s second week. Temperatures plummeted and a storm system blanketed the northern half of the state with 2-3 inches of snow. The frozen weather resulted in numerous traffic accidents and closed many businesses and schools. Spring took its turn with at least three tornadoes rumbling out of Texas across Love, Marshall, and Johnston counties on March 21.
The first month of spring greeted Oklahoma with warmer and more tranquil weather than the historic cold and snowy February that preceded it. While March offered up momentary glances of nearly every weather hazard in Oklahoma’s arsenal, the month was most often quiet. By coincidence—although state lore will say it’s the norm—the most active weather occurred during Oklahoma’s collectively shared spring break. On March 16-17, local National Weather Service offices issued a blizzard warning in the Panhandle, and severe thunderstorm and tornado watches in the main body of the state.
Winter seemed to take a final bow after February in Oklahoma, leaving March with a warm and wet transition to spring. Areas of southern Oklahoma failed to see temperatures dip below freezing, and Hollis managed to hit 100 degrees on one of the earliest dates in state history. The lack of wintry weather was replaced by active spring weather. Severe storms were not prevalent, but there were three distinct storm systems that brought damaging weather to the state. Severe storms on the 19th spawned at least two tornadoes according to preliminary data from the National Weather Service.
Drought continued to punish western Oklahoma throughout March, even as eastern sections saw additional relief. Similar to February, Interstate 44 served as a rough demarcation line between the above normal totals to the southeast and paltry offerings to the northwest. The news was dire for northwestern Oklahoma, where precipitation deficits that began in early October 2017 strengthened drought impacts. Fire danger rose to critical levels almost daily.
Although drought, severe storms and flooding rainfall all made their presence known during the month, March’s weather story was dominated by fire. Several months of elevated fire danger came to a head March 6 with the ignition of four large wildfires across far northwestern Oklahoma and southern Kansas. The group of fires was labeled the “Northwest Oklahoma Complex.” The wildfires, pressed by winds gusting to more than 60 mph, scorched a total of 779,292 acres. Approximately 472,000 acres of that total were in Kansas. The cost of the fires, both to property and lives, was tremendous.
The dry weather that had plagued the state during the first two months of 2016 continued during March. Drought conditions spread across nearly all of northwestern Oklahoma and aided the massive Anderson Creek wildfire that burned 367,620 acres across Woods County in Oklahoma and the adjacent counties in southern Kansas. The total acreage burned in Oklahoma amounted to 88,082, all within Woods County. The fire, whipped by winds of over 60 mph, began on March 22 near Camp Houston in Woods County before quickly spreading to the north and then east.
It took nearly the entire month, but severe weather finally made a rather abrupt return to Oklahoma during the last week of March. Two separate storm systems brought severe winds, large hail and tornadoes after a hiatus filled mostly with winter weather headlines. On March 25, a combination of thunderstorm winds and an intermittent tornado that reached EF-2 in strength traveled through southwest Oklahoma City and Moore before dissipating in north Norman. The twister caused significant damage to Southgate Elementary in central Moore and the surrounding neighborhood.