Seasonal Outlook: US Winter 25/26 Recap & Start to SCS Season

While the United States had a top five warm and dry winter, impactful weather events were seen including the late January ice storm in the south-central US and historic snowstorms in the Northeast US and Upper Great Lakes.
The first half of March has featured several highly impactful Severe Convective Storm events. Two outbreaks in the middle of the month featured the largest hailstone on record east of the Mississippi River, multiple EF-3+ tornadoes and wind/hail impacts to major population centers including Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas City, Chicago, Ohio and the northeastern US.
The second half of March switches to a quiet weather pattern for severe weather while record heat will dominate a wide expanse of the western United States. The next window for appreciable severe thunderstorm activity is expected at month’s end into the first third of April.
Alongside 12 other industry partners, Guy Carpenter is sponsoring CIRCS, the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Convective Storms. Driven by faculty and students at the University of Wisconsin and Northern Illinois University, guided by the National Science Foundation and NOAA, the center will more rapidly advance the state of Severe Convective Storm risk for the insurance sector.

Statewide Temperature and Precipitation Rank

Source: NOAA, NWS, Guy Carpenter, Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Convective Storms

Largest Hailstone Recorded East of the Mississippi River

Associated with the same supercell producing an EF-3 tornado in Kankakee, IL, two hailstones measuring 6.1” and 6.7” shattered the prior Illinois record of 4.75”, recorded in July 2015. A 6.7” hail stone is the largest ever recorded east of the Mississippi River.

Another supercell further moved across the southern and western Chicago metro region, producing widespread 2” to 4” hail from northeast Will county, southeast DuPage county into far west-central Cook county.
Another late winterstorm producing blizzard conditions and snowfall in excess of 2 feet in Wisconsin spanned more severe weather across the eastern half of the country. Ohio was particularly hard hit where winds more than 70mph generated the highest number of Ohio power outages in over a decade.

The cold front swept across the Eastern US Seaboard on Monday the 16th, registering nearly 500 wind reports, approaching daily high levels of the last several years.