EF0 tornado in Pickens County, South Carolina

Tornado April 3, 2017 · Pickens County, South Carolina

EF0

Rating

2.8 mi

Whole path

50 yd

Path width

$50K

Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Pickens County → Greenville County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 50 yards (0.03 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF0 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF0 is light damage: shingles and siding peeled, gutters torn, branches broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 65–85 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

NWS storm survey determined a tornado touched down in eastern Pickens County near Saluda Dam and Pistol Club Roads, downing trees, damaging outbuildings, and ripping metal sheeting off roofs at a farm site. Some minor structural damage, mainly in the form of missing shingles, occurred to a nearby house. The tornado weakened as it moved E/NE and may have lifted briefly before crossing into Greenville County at Saluda Lake.

The wider storm

A line of showers and thunderstorms developing ahead of a cold front pushes across Upstate South Carolina during the afternoon. In addition to locally damaging winds, several brief, weak tornadoes touched down, including a fatal tornado in Union County.

Began near Latham (34.8590, -82.5070).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

4 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

EF1 Union County 1 dead EF0 Pickens County EF0 Laurens County EF0 Union County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 690883. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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