Alert archive / South Carolina
Weather alerts in South Carolina, 2016
2,678 weather alerts in 2016, from the National Weather Service and the Storm Prediction Center. An alert counts here when it covered any part of the state, so the counties below add up to more than the state.
Weather alerts by county
Each county as a circle sized by its count in 2016. Tap one for its archive.
- Alerts
- 2,678
- Warnings
- 777
- Watches
- 83
- Advisories
- 496
- Busiest month
- July767 alerts
- Busiest day
- July 9, 201668 alerts
Over time
By month
Warning verification
How often warnings here had a storm report inside them, and how much warning the reports had.
3 of 27 tornado warnings covering South Carolina in 2016 had a tornado report inside them; 7 of 8 tornado reports fell inside a warning, on average 37 minutes after it went out.
South Carolina, 2016
| Warnings | With a report | False alarm ratio | Reports | Inside a warning | Mean lead time | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tornado warnings | 27 | 3 | 89% | 8 | 88% | 37 min |
| Severe thunderstorm warnings | 470 | 372 | 21% | 824 | 86% | 21 min |
| Flash flood warnings | 37 | 32 | 14% | 137 | 86% | 141 min |
Each office's whole area, 2016
| Warnings | With a report | False alarm ratio | Reports | Inside a warning | Mean lead time | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NWS Columbia, SC: tornado warnings | 6 | 1 | 83% | 2 | 50% | 13 min |
| NWS Columbia, SC: severe thunderstorm warnings | 192 | 163 | 15% | 324 | 87% | 21 min |
| NWS Columbia, SC: flash flood warnings | 14 | 12 | 14% | 45 | 96% | 71 min |
| NWS Greenville-Spartanburg, SC: tornado warnings | 8 | 2 | 75% | 6 | 100% | 41 min |
| NWS Greenville-Spartanburg, SC: severe thunderstorm warnings | 248 | 185 | 25% | 536 | 80% | 18 min |
| NWS Greenville-Spartanburg, SC: flash flood warnings | 23 | 19 | 17% | 79 | 87% | 91 min |
| NWS Wilmington, NC: tornado warnings | 20 | 0 | 100% | 1 | 0% | |
| NWS Wilmington, NC: severe thunderstorm warnings | 124 | 86 | 31% | 188 | 83% | 20 min |
| NWS Wilmington, NC: flash flood warnings | 20 | 16 | 20% | 56 | 95% | 172 min |
| NWS Charleston, SC: tornado warnings | 12 | 2 | 83% | 5 | 20% | 27 min |
| NWS Charleston, SC: severe thunderstorm warnings | 128 | 88 | 31% | 334 | 80% | 22 min |
| NWS Charleston, SC: flash flood warnings | 12 | 10 | 17% | 59 | 66% | 211 min |
An office's figures cover every county it serves, including across state lines.
Verified by the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's Cow, which matches each storm-based warning with the local storm reports inside its polygon while it was in force, within 15 km of its edge: a tornado warning counts as verified on a tornado report, a severe thunderstorm warning on hail of 1 inch or more, a gust of 58 mph or more, or wind damage, a flash flood warning on a flash flood report. The false alarm ratio is the share of warnings with no such report; "inside a warning" is the probability of detection, the share of reports that fell inside one; lead time runs from the warning's issue to each report inside it, counting zero for a report that came first. A warning with no report is not proof nothing happened: reports come from spotters, the public and damage surveys, and are thin where few people live.
The alerts
2,678 alerts are too many to list on one page. Narrow it to a product above, to a month in the chart, or to a county.
By product
Every kind of product issued here, grouped by hazard. Each opens the same place narrowed to that product.
By county
Every county with at least one alert. A county page lists each alert that covered it.
- Horry County212
- Berkeley County186
- Richland County178
- Georgetown County171
- Florence County167
- Lexington County165
- Marion County161
- Chesterfield County159
- York County158
- Kershaw County156
- Williamsburg County155
- Marlboro County153
- Chester County148
- Fairfield County146
- Darlington County145
- Sumter County144
- Calhoun County142
- Lee County140
- Colleton County140
- Dillon County139
- Dorchester County132
- Cherokee County132
- Clarendon County129
- Union County128
- Aiken County126
- Newberry County124
- Spartanburg County124
- Edgefield County119
- Greenville County115
- Jasper County114
- Charleston County113
- Saluda County113
- Hampton County109
- Anderson County107
- Laurens County103
- Barnwell County101
- Greenwood County101
- Bamberg County100
- Lancaster County98
- Abbeville County98
The busiest days
Days with the most alerts issued, by UTC date.
Nearby
Alerts in force nowTornadoes on recordThe radar archive20152017
Sources
National Weather Service watches, warnings, advisories and statements from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's VTEC archive, which reconstructs tornado, severe thunderstorm, flash flood and marine warnings back to 1986 from the NWS text archive. Storm Prediction Center watches and mesoscale discussions from SPC's archive through the Mesonet. County centers from the US Census Bureau. Warning verification from the Mesonet's Cow. Rebuilt daily.