EF1 tornado in Greenwood County, South Carolina

Tornado May 3, 2021 · Greenwood County, South Carolina

EF1

Rating

29.4 mi

Whole path

150 yd

Path width

Injury

$115K

Damage as recorded

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 150 yards (0.09 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

NWS storm survey determined the path of an EF2 tornado that tracked almost the length of Abbeville County moved into Greenwood County with EF1 intensity at Johns Creek Rd. The tornado moved almost due east, crossing Deadfall Rd West, Calhoun Rd just west of Highway 25 before finally lifting near Highway 25 along the northern outskirts of the city of Greenwood. Damage was primarily limited to uprooted hardwoods and snapped softwoods in Greenwood County, although a couple of storage buildings received minor to moderate damage. The total path length of over 29 miles made this the longest tornado track in upstate South Carolina since 1994.

The wider storm

Multiple supercell thunderstorms developed across upstate South Carolina during the afternoon. Two tornadoes developed across the Piedmont, including one significant tornado that produced the longest tornado track in the Upstate in almost 30 years.

Began near Harris (34.2260, -82.2510).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

EF1 York County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 962596. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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