EF1 tornado in McCormick County, South Carolina

Tornado June 9, 2025 · McCormick County, South Carolina

EF1

Rating

1.5 mi

Whole path

200 yd

Path width

$20K

Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Elbert County, Georgia → McCormick County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 200 yards (0.11 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF1 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF1 is moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 86–110 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

An NWS Greenville-Spartanburg storm survey confirmed a brief tornado touched down in Bobby Brown State Park in Elbert County, downing trees across Bobby Brown State Park Road and intensifying as it crossed Ranger Road. Dozens of trees were snapped and uprooted as the tornado approached a cove along the Savannah River. Some structural damage to pavilions occurred at the Bobby Brown Recreational Center. Tree damage was observed across the river in McCormick County SC, with some uprooted trees and large limbs broken. It is unknown how far into McCormick County the tornado may have traveled due to lack of roads on US Army Corps of Engineers property.

The wider storm

The same slow moving long wave trough caused severe weather on preceding days helped trigger and organize another broken line of severe convection in the Midlands of SC on June 9th. Sufficient low level shear and strong instability helped produce two tornadoes along with a swath of scattered damaging winds into the central Midlands.

Began near Mt Carmel (33.9735, -82.5843).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

1 more tornado the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

EF1 Lexington County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1272768. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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