F0 tornado, Walhalla to Oakway, South Carolina, May 7, 1998

1. F040 to 72 mphthis tornado

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. F173 to 112 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. F2113 to 157 mph

   Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.

4. F3158 to 206 mph

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. F4207 to 260 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. F5261 to 318 mph

   Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.

7. Unrated

   The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.

Rating

F0

Date

May 7, 1998

Touchdown

5:25 PM EDT (21:25 UTC)

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$10,000

County

Oconee County

Touchdown point

34.600, -83.030

Lift-off point

34.600, -83.030

Record number

993

Supercell thunderstorms developed rapidly in a highly sheared and unstable environment in east Tennessee and north Georgia during the late afternoon and tracked east-southeast. One long-lived supercell crossed into Oconee county around 5 pm EDT and tracked southeast through Anderson, Abbeville and Greenwood counties. Two weak tornadoes touched down briefly in Oconee county. The same storm produced a weak tornado in Abbeville and Greenwood counties as well. This supercell also produced hail up to baseball size and actually clipped extreme southern Greenville county and western Laurens with quarter to golf ball size hail. Rear flank downdraft winds blew down trees and power lines in Anderson county. Laurens county also had trees and power lines blown down from the forward flank downdraft. Heavy rain from the severe thunderstorm caused several streets and roads in and around the city of Anderson to be flooded for a couple hours. Another supercell made its way into Oconee county later in the evening and produced nickel size hail near Chickasaw Point before weakening.

A weak tornado briefly touched down in the town of Oakway downing trees and blowing roofs off outbuildings. The tornado was seen by several citizens and weather spotters.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

14 minutes of warning. NWS GSP issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:11 UTC, 14 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:45 UTC.

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Moderate Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 14:48 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.

The Greer radar (KGSP), 80 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:26 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

The live radar over the trackEvery 1998 tornado in South CarolinaEvery tornado in South Carolina since 1950Warnings in force in South Carolina nowThe forecast where you are

42 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.