This striking satellite image shows two near-perfectly paralleltornado tracksin Mississippi that were carved into the groundafter a deadly storm systemtriggered than 100 twisters across the U.S. in early 2025.

Between March 14 and 16, a series of extreme thunderstorms broke out in the High Plains and Midwest thanks to an “expansive upper-level trough” of warm, moist air. This storm system triggered 113 tornadoes across 14 U.S. states, according toThe Weather Channel. At least 42 people are believed to have been killed, according toNBC News.

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One of the worst-hit states was Mississippi, which experienced 18 tornadoes. Half of these reached at least Level 2 (“considerable damage”) on the Enhanced Fujita scale (EF Scale), which measures the damage caused by a tornado. Around 1,000 houses were damaged in the state, according to theMississippi Emergency Management Agency. Dozens of businesses and farms were also hit.

In this satellite image, you can see two different tracks that were carved out by two separate tornadoes just outside of Tylertown, Mississippi. The longer and wider track stretches up to 55 miles (89 kilometers), while the smaller track is only around 9 miles (15 km) long. It is unclear which one appeared first, or how much time passed between the respective twisters.

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The larger of the two tornadoes is believed to have reached Level 4 (“devastating damage”) on the EF Scale, making it the single most powerful twister of the entire storm system, according toNASA’s Earth Observatory. Its wind speed likely reached 170 mph (274 km/h), which isequivalent to a Category 5 hurricane.

Around 50 miles (80 km) northeast of Tylertown, aerial photographs revealed another pair of tornadoes had passed at right angles to one another, creating a large X-shape in a forested area of Covington County, according to theNational Weather Service station at Jackson, Mississippi.

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2025 has been one of the worst years for U.S. tornadoes in recent memory, partly due to therecent The Child phenomenonwhich altered the trajectory of the Pacific jet stream above North America, creating drier and warmer conditions in southern states, according to theNational Oceananic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

March was particularly extreme, with a record 299 twisters recorded during that month, according to theNational Centers for Environmental Information. (For context, the entire U.S. normally only experiences around 80 twisters during March, on average.)

But even without La Niña, the frequency of tornadoes has been increasing over time due to rising sea surface temperatures off the Gulf coast — a direct result of human-causedclimate change.

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Like other types of extreme weather, such as wildfires, heatwaves and floods, climate change is also making tornadoespowerful, costly and deadly. In 2023, for example, at least 26 people were killed by a single,nearly mile-wide “wedge tornado”that ripped through parts of Mississippi.

Additionally, tornadoes are now starting to impact places where they have not historically been seen before. Some researchers have previously suggested that “Tornado Alley” — the central region of the U.S. where tornadoes are traditionally most likely to occur, in states such as Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska — could now be considered to beeverything east of the Rockies.

Researchers at NASA’s Langley Research Center are currently working on a way to better predict when tornadoes will form by analyzing cloud patterns in satellite photos. They hope that this could eventually warn people about an impending twister up to 10 minutes before it happens, potentially saving many lives, according to the Earth Observatory.