From January to March 2017, various weather forecast offices of the National Weather Service confirmed at least 399 tornadoes across the United States, activity well beyond climatological norms. Based on the 1991–2010 average, the first month of the year is expected to see 35 tornadoes, with 29 occurring in February and 80 forming throughout March. In 2017, however, the count for the first three months was 135, 70, and 194, respectively. Activity began with the development of an EF1 tornado north of Jasper, Texas at 15:03 UTC on January 2. The latest storm of the period was an EF1 that touched down southeast of Powellsville, North Carolina at 22:15 UTC on March 31. The strongest tornado, an EF4, carved a path of destruction from Perryville, Missouri to southwest of Christopher, Illinois. Meanwhile, the deadliest tornado of the period was of EF3 intensity that destroyed a mobile home park south of Adel, Georgia, killing 11 people.
The first month of the year featured the second-highest tornado count on record, surpassed only by 1999. A total of 135 tornadoes were confirmed, resultant from two major outbreaks that affected the United States on January 2 and from January 21–23. The latter event was the second-largest January outbreak on record (with 81 confirmed tornadoes), second to January 21–23, 1999, and the third-largest wintertime outbreak, excelled only by the aforementioned incident and the 2008 Super Tuesday tornado outbreak. In addition, the outbreak led to 42 tornadoes in the state of Georgia, upending the previous record of 25 set during 2004's Hurricane Ivan. Twenty people were killed from January 21–23, the second-highest count during a January event to the 1969 Hazlehurst, Mississippi tornado outbreak. February, meanwhile, featured 70 tornadoes, a count well below that of the preceding month's but still over twice the long-term average. An outbreak on the final day of February into the first day of March produced 72 tornadoes and 4 fatalities. On the back of that outbreak, an event of 63 tornadoes across similar areas a week later, and continued activity in the weeks following, March observed a total of 194 tornadoes.