The severe weather spread eastward on March 1 and left a deadly mark across the southern US, particularly in Alabama and Georgia.

Scattered severe weather was also reported in North Carolina on March 2, producing the final tornado of the outbreak before the storms moved offshore into the Atlantic Ocean.

[4] The tornado outbreak was caused by a large low-pressure system across the central United States that intensified on February 28 over Kansas, and a cold front moved across the region, providing the lift needed to develop storms.

Additionally, a surge of very moist air from the Gulf of Mexico and warm temperatures across the south side of the storm expanded these developments.

The first tornadoes developed early in the evening that day in Kansas as the dry line pushed eastward and was lifted by the cold front.

Farther south, expected activity in Oklahoma and Arkansas didn't take place as the atmospheric cap held up.

[7] A high risk of severe storms — the first such issuance since April 7, 2006 — was issued for a large part of the Deep South for March 1 as the cold front moved eastward.

[8] The activity began almost immediately, with several isolated tornadoes taking place that morning across the Mississippi Valley, one of which caused the outbreak's first death.

Nearly continuous supercells formed north of the Gulf of Mexico and produced many tornadoes, some of which hit large population centers with devastating effects.

[11] In addition to the tornadoes, widespread straight-line wind damage from microbursts were also reported, along with scattered large hail, the largest of which were the size of baseballs.

[12] Early on the afternoon of Thursday, March 1, at 1:08 pm CST (19:08 UTC), a destructive tornado first developed near the Enterprise Municipal Airport.

[72] One other death was reported in Enterprise at a nearby private residence when a woman's living room window was shattered by the tornado.

The tornado at the school was so strong that it tossed and mangled cars in the parking lot, flattened parts of the stadium and tore trees out of the ground.

This tornado began at approximately 9:00 pm EST (02:00 UTC), about 6 miles (9.7 km) southeast of Weston in Webster County, Georgia.

There, a cinder block house and two machine shops were destroyed, and a 25-foot section of asphalt was scoured from a nearby road.

Marble monuments, some 30 feet (9.1 m) tall, were smashed, 26 wrought-iron fences were toppled, and 104 cedar, magnolia, and oak trees were lost.

Minor damage was reported to 586 residences, 88 businesses, two churches, a school, a fire station, two recreation facilities / parks, and a cemetery.

[55][78] On the other side of the low-pressure area, a significant blizzard occurred over the northern Great Plains and Upper Midwest, including parts of Minnesota, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Wisconsin, Iowa and Nebraska, where several snowfalls in excess of 8 to 18 inches (20 to 46 centimetres) were reported, as well as snow of between 6 and 11 inches (15 and 28 centimetres) across portions of Ontario and Quebec.

19 people were killed by the storm, including two in Manitoba,[80] two in Ontario,[81] one in Massachusetts, four in North Dakota, one in Minnesota, three in Michigan, five in Wisconsin and one in Nebraska.

[85] On the morning of March 3, President George W. Bush visited the community and declared Coffee County a disaster area.

However, the National Weather Service survey from the office in Tallahassee suggested that the death toll could have been much higher due to the extreme damage in the parking lot and the area nearby.

[87] In a later service assessment done by the NWS, it was determined that the school had taken the appropriate safety precautions to minimize and prevent potential loss of life with the tornado approaching, and the students were indeed in the safest part of the building.