A closed upper low slowly moved into the Tennessee Valley with an associated surface cold front moving into the area during the late afternoon and into the evening. This sparked scattered convection in a modestly unstable environment, but solid deep layer shear and mid-level lapse rates yielded severe hail in Bamberg County.
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Deaths and injuries are direct and indirect together, as the offices filed them. Damage is property and crops in the dollars of the year, not adjusted for inflation, and only where an office estimated it.
The episode as NWS CAE wrote it up.
A closed upper low slowly moved into the Tennessee Valley with an associated surface cold front moving into the area during the late afternoon and into the evening. This sparked scattered convection in a modestly unstable environment, but solid deep layer shear and mid-level lapse rates yielded severe hail in Bamberg County.
The local office's own words before the first event, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.
NWS Columbia, SC wrote its last area forecast discussion before the first event at May 2, 6:21 PM EST, 22 hours 55 minutes earlier.
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</html>The Charleston,SC radar (KCLX), 52 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the first event began at 22:18 UTC.
1 hail. Local standard time, as filed.
Facebook post with a video of hail falling on Low Country Hwy between Olar and Ehrhardt. Additional photo showed a hailstone that was approximately quarter size. Time provided by user and confirmed by radar.
After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.
Every storm in South Carolina in 2025Every state in 2025This day in weather historyWarnings in South Carolina, May 2025
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database, compiled from the National Weather Service’s monthly Storm Data. Complete through 2026-06; NCEI adds each month about 75 days after it ends and revises past years a few times a year. Rebuilt 2026-10-01. Each event’s entry at NCEI: 1254524.