EFU Tornado — Georgetown, South Carolina

2024-09-27 · near Wedgefield Plantatio, Georgetown, South Carolina

Event narrative

A tornado developed on the west side of the Waccamaw River near Hagley Landing (west of Pawleys Island, SC). The area where the tornado occurred was not accessible by Emergency Management or the National Weather Service storm survey team. However, a news direction from WPDE was able to take pictures of the tornado as it moved across the uninhabited marshes west of the river. Radar indicated strong rotation around that time the pictures were taken. Since there was no access to potential damage indicators this tornado was designated as EF-U (unknown) for its intensity. Also there was no way to determine its path width the path length was estimated based on radar imagery and the photos.

Wider weather episode

Hurricane Helene made landfall along the Gulf Coast of FL in the Big Bend and weakened to a tropical storm before reaching central GA. The storm then turned northwest across the southern Appalachians before weakening to a tropical depression over eastern TN. Tropical Storm Warnings were issued for all of northeast SC. Limited impacts generally occurred across northeast SC.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (33.4212, -79.2157)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1212019. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.