An area of low pressure over the U.S. Southwest began to collide with humid air flowing north on March 14, 2025. The combination powered a destructive weather front that unleashed a chaotic weekend of winds, thunderstorms, hail, dust, and wildfires as the front pushed east through several U.S. states.
Dust streamed northeast across Texas and Oklahoma behind a line of thunderstorms when the VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) on the NOAA-21 satellite captured this image on March 14, 2025. Amidst the blanket of dust, smoke plumes are visible streaming from wildland fires burning near several towns in Oklahoma, including Camargo, Iconium, Langston, Leedey, Maramec, Merrick, Orlando, Pawhuska, and Stillwater.
In Oklahoma, hurricane-force winds gusted up to 85 miles (137 kilometers) per hour, triggering a massive dust storm and fanning fast-moving grass fires that caused the state’s governor to declare a state of emergency in 12 counties. The high winds and fires damaged more than 400 homes and structures, including at least 70 homes in Stillwater that were destroyed. The extreme weather also caused tens of thousands of power outages and triggered deadly traffic accidents.
More than 170,000 acres of land burned, according to The Oklahoman. Many fires raged in parched grasslands that had been abnormally dry and drought-prone in recent weeks, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
“Wildfires are really many hazards at once,” said Doug Morton, a remote sensing scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, citing dangers including the direct threat to life and property, health hazards posed by the smoke, and issues of visibility that make road and air travel dangerous. “In Oklahoma, the mixture of dust and smoke compounded the problem and led to treacherous conditions,” Morton said.
The same storm system generated dozens of tornadoes, some of which touched down in Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, taking dozens of lives and flattening homes in several communities.
References & Resources
- ABC News (2025, March 16) 4 dead and 142 injured in Oklahoma wildfires; more than 400 homes damaged statewide. Accessed March 17, 2025.
- AccuWeather (2025, March 17) 16 dead after extreme winds, monster dust storms and wildfires tear across Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. Accessed March 17, 2025.
- Fox Weather (2025, March 14) Hurricane-force gusts blast Texas, Oklahoma as fast-spreading wildfires prompt evacuations. Accessed March 17, 2025.
- NASA (2025) FireSense. Accessed March 17, 2025.
- NASA Earthdata Wildfires. Accessed March 17, 2025.
- NASA Earth Observatory (2024, December 12) The Fast Fire Threat. Accessed March 17, 2025.
- NOAA (2025, March 14) Storm Reports. Accessed March 17, 2025.
- NOAA (2025, March 15) Mid-March Tornado Outbreak. Accessed March 17, 2025.
- Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management (2025, March 15) Wildfire Situation Update 2 - March 15 2025. Accessed March 17, 2025.
- The Oklahoman (2015, March 16) Four people died as a result of fires or high winds. Fire risk, strong winds return Monday and Tuesday. Accessed March 17, 2025.
- U.S. Drought Monitor (2025, March 13) South. Accessed March 17, 2025.
NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE , GIBS/Worldview , and the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS). Story by Adam Voiland .
