EF0 tornado in Sumter County, South Carolina

A National Weather Service storm survey team confirmed an EF-0 tornado, with peak winds of 80 mph, east of Sumter in Sumter County, SC. The tornado began near Mims Rd and London Rd, moved northeast parallel to Camp Branch Rd, and turned northward as it crossed Highway 378 near Plowden Mill Rd. The tornado then turned sharply northwest as it crossed E Brewington Rd and the Rocky Bluff Swamp, then dissipated near Florence Highway south of Goza Rd. The weak tornado snapped the trunks of several pine trees, uprooted another pine tree, and snapped several tree limbs along its path.

Hurricane Sally made landfall near Gulf Shores, AL, as a category 2 hurricane, in the early morning of Wednesday, September 16, 2020, and then weakened and turned to the NE, tracking across the Central Savannah River Area of Georgia, and across Central SC, as a post-tropical area of low pressure, on Thursday, September 17. Moisture, instability and low level wind shear, associated with the low, provided tornadoes, heavy rain, and flooding. 48-hour rainfall totals of 2 to 6 inches fell across a large portion of the Midlands of SC, with higher rainfall amounts of 6 to almost 9 inches observed across portions of the southern and eastern Midlands from lower Orangeburg Co NE across S Calhoun Co, Sumter Co, Clarendon Co and S Lee Co SC. A total of 9 confirmed tornadoes occurred in Central SC during the morning and early afternoon of Sept. 17.