Tornadoes · United States · South Carolina · 2001
F0 tornado, Carlisle, South Carolina, June 9, 2001
This F0 tornado ran 0.5 miles across Union County on June 9, 2001, touching down at 3:15 PM EDT. It killed nobody.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
F040 to 72 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
F4207 to 260 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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.
The record
- Rating
- F0
- Date
- June 9, 2001
- Touchdown
- 3:15 PM EDT (19:15 UTC)
- Path length
- 0.5 miles (0.8 km)
- Path width
- 0 yards (0 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Union County
- Touchdown point
- 34.620, -81.480
- Lift-off point
- 34.620, -81.480
- Record number
- 264
What the Weather Service recorded
Several eyewitnesses reported a tornado touching down during a thunderstorm that was effectively stationary for at least 15 minutes. Path of the tornado was mostly through the woods. Fire departmentfound 2 large oak trees with broken limbs. NWS storm survey team received 5 images of the tornado. The tornado was a well-defined vortex descending from an apparent small wall cloud. Radar presentation displayed a small thunderstorm, or moderate to heavy rain shower, with only a 30,000 foot top.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
What forecasters said that day
The local office's own words before the tornado touched down, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.
NWS Greenville-Spartanburg, SC wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at Jun 9, 2:59 PM EDT, 16 minutes earlier.
Area forecast discussion, Jun 9, 2:59 PM EDT, 16 minutes before
AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE GREENVILLE-SPARTANBURG SC 259 PM EDT SAT JUN 9 2001 CONVECTION GENERALLY SOUTH OF THE CWFA THIS AFTERNOON. A FEW CELLS IN/CLOSE TO SRN SECTIONS...SO WILL MENTION SLIGHT CHC THIS EVENING. SOME LOW LEVEL MOISTURE SUNDAY...BUT EVEN ETA WHICH IS MORE MOIST SHOWS MID LEVEL INVERSION. KEPT FCST PARTLY CLOUDY. MOISTURE A LITTLE LESS MONDAY...BUT DEW POINTS ON THE RISE ON SWLY FLOW. ATMOS BECOMES UNSTABLE SO SMALL CHC POPS. FOR EXTENDED...RIDGE AXIS SETS UP TO OUR EAST. TEMPS WARM DRAMATICALLY. ATMOS BECOMES MOIST AND UNSTABLE SO CHC POPS. CHC HIER NEAR END OF EXTENDED WHEN FNT MOVES THRU. GSP 62 85 63 87 / 20 10 10 30 AND 62 85 63 87 / 20 10 10 30 CLT 60 85 62 87 / 10 10 10 30 HKY 59 83 60 85 / 0 10 10 30 AVL 54 79 56 82 / 0 10 10 30 .GSP... GA...NONE. NC...NONE. SC...NONE. RWH
The surface observations
Spartanburg (SPA), 55 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:00 UTC |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Greer radar (KGSP), 74 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:13 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.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2001 tornado in South CarolinaEvery tornado in South Carolina since 1950Warnings in force in South Carolina nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of June 9, 2001
16 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 9 | 2:12 PM MDT | F0 | Lincoln, CO | 0.1 | 50 | |||
| June 9 | 2:14 PM MDT | F0 | Lincoln, CO | 0.1 | 50 | |||
| June 9 | 2:32 PM MDT | F0 | Lincoln, CO | 5.0 | 880 | |||
| June 9 | 3:10 PM MDT | F0 | Lincoln, CO | 0.1 | 50 | |||
| June 9 | 4:18 PM MDT | F0 | Lincoln, CO | 0.1 | 50 | |||
| June 9 | 6:26 PM EDT | F0 | Alpena, MI | 0.3 | 10 | |||
| June 9 | 4:35 PM MDT | F0 | Lincoln, CO | 0.5 | 1,320 | |||
| June 9 | 6:35 PM EDT | F1 | Gladwin, MI | 3.0 | 30 | $90,000 | ||
| June 9 | 4:50 PM MDT | F0 | Weston, WY | 0.5 | 10 | 2 | ||
| June 9 | 7:10 PM CDT | F1 | Emmons, ND | 10.0 | 60 | 1 | ||
| June 9 | 10:01 PM CDT | F0 | McPherson, NE | 5.0 | 880 | $3,000 | ||
| June 9 | 10:26 PM CDT | F0 | Brule, SD | 0.1 | 50 | |||
| June 9 | 11:40 PM CDT | F0 | Miner, SD | 0.1 | 50 | |||
| June 9 | 11:58 PM CDT | F0 | McCook, SD | 0.1 | 50 | |||
| June 9 | 12:14 AM CDT | F0 | McCook, SD | 0.1 | 50 | |||
| June 9 | 12:40 AM CDT | F0 | Brookings, SD | 0.1 | 50 |
What this means
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.
Sources
NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.