EF1 tornado, Russellville to St Stephen, South Carolina, April 16, 2011

1. EF065 to 85 mph

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

2. EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado

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

3. EF2111 to 135 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. EF3136 to 165 mph

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

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

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

6. EF5over 200 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

EF1

Date

April 16, 2011

Touchdown

5:03 PM EDT (21:03 UTC)

Lifted

5:14 PM EDT (21:14 UTC)

On the ground

11 minutes

Path length

7.9 miles (12.7 km)

Path width

120 yards (110 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Berkeley County

Touchdown point

33.355, -80.037

Lift-off point

33.397, -79.909

Record number

1104161503-01

A cold front in combination with outflow boundaries from upstream convection, resulted in scattered strong to severe thunderstorms across southern South Carolina.

NWS personnel confirmed a EF-1 tornado with estimated wind speeds between 105 to 110 miles per hour. A tornadic waterspout formed over northern Lake Moultrie in South Carolina at 503 PM and traveled east northeast for 2 miles before coming onshore 2.5 miles southwest of Russellville South Carolina. The tornado then traveled east northeast before dissipating 1 mile southeast of Saint Stephen, South Carolina. The tornado lifted a roof off a church, destroyed a mobile home, shifted two other mobile homes off their foundations, tore half the roof off a house, destroyed a barn, tore shingles and/or siding off of a dozen homes/mobile homes, uprooted or snapped off many hundred trees, damaged or destroyed sections of several fences and knocked down several power poles.

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

10 minutes of warning. NWS CHS issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:53 UTC, 10 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 16:05 UTC and running to 00:01 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, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 20:03 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 Columbia radar (KCAE), 124 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:04 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.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2011 tornado in South CarolinaEvery tornado in South Carolina since 1950Warnings in force in South Carolina nowThe forecast where you are

56 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.