I don't think March 25, 2021 underperformed at all in hindsight. If anything from that month did it was March 17, which also included a 45% hatched tornado probability area (matching 4/27 and 5/24/11, and 5/20/19) but only produced four tornadoes rated above the "weak" category (all EF2).
May 25th of 2024 is a notable one. The second day-2 outlook issued on May 24 contained some of the most ominous wording I'd ever seen outside of 4/27 and 5/20/19, especially for a non-Broyles outlook.However, they held off on the high risk initially due to concerns over lesser storm coverage, but by the time of the first Day-1 outlook it was clear the bigger issue was going to be outflow wrecking the thermodynamics in parts of the warm sector, and potential for destructive storm interactions which did indeed end up significantly limiting the ceiling of the event. As one chaser in the Stormtrack Discord put it: "One left split. I have never before seen a tornado outbreak Atmospheric Anti-Climax by one left split." In keeping with the general theme of last year in the Southern Plains, the most significant tornadoes came after dark.
Edit: Can we stop applying the auto-censor to b**t everywhere in this forum? I understand it when people are calling it prematurely in active event threads, but it's getting old, especially when I'm going back and finding it in my posts where I used it in reference to my own chase, not the event in general.
Can we use it the conventional way? Sure if you look up definitions you might see something like 'no severe weather occurred when it was expected', but that's not how I've seen it used. The senses I've seen are either the one you're using, where the writer didn't see what they wanted, or a generalised sense that expectations weren't met, even if some tornadoes (even destructive ones) did in fact occur.
For writer's experience, looking at storm chasing blogs, articles, forums etc. I've seen more than one person mention a bu$t on 25/5/2008, even though it had the Parkersburg tornado, arguably the most impressive tornado of the decade (or in the top two). From what I gather, most storm chasers had targeted a different area and saw not much.
For expectations, 20/5/2019 is the perfect example. No one would've batted an eye if it was a slight or enhanced. But the forecast meant people were quite legitimately expecting something historic along the lines of the Andover or May 3 outbreaks. Furthermore this came in the context of a drought in Plains events. Expectations were sky-high and weren't met.
Here and certain spots on Twitter I've seen a strong insistence that no tornadoes, or at least no damaging ones, should occur to declare a bu$t. By that standard there's never been a high risk bu$t. The term originated in the storm chaser community and their activities, so there's less consideration of impacts implicit there. The SPC forecasts and verifications are based on objective probabilities as well.
Hence I don't see why the word should be censored so that holders of one opinion aren't offended. Especially as some of those people clearly trawl Twitter for opinions they don't like and post them here to rile people up. Complaints about 'weather weenies' don't cut much ice coming from pseudonymous posters on a forum.
These events are interesting to compare. March 17 actually saw more tornadoes than March 25 but they were predominantly weak. I remember that the system progressed faster than forecast so the evening event with possible 'long track, intense tornadoes' didn't pan out as expected. Hence ir cuased the usual arguments. Despite having fewer tornadoes, March 25 was the kind of event that is expected in the Southeast, producing long tracked, destructive tornadoes.
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