EF0 tornado, Gifford, South Carolina, April 3, 2017

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

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

2. EF186 to 110 mph

   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

EF0

Date

April 3, 2017

Touchdown

4:43 PM EDT (20:43 UTC)

Lifted

4:44 PM EDT (20:44 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.5 km)

Path width

240 yards (219 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Hampton County

Touchdown point

32.860, -81.190

Lift-off point

32.861, -81.185

Record number

1704031443-01

A warm front lifted north over the area early, increasing instability over much of the Southeast well ahead of a cold front approaching from the west late. Aloft, a mid/upper trough of low pressure over the Central United States took on a negative tilt while tracking east. As this occurred, an embedded H5 shortwave rounded the southern periphery of the longwave trough, shifting over the Southeast United States in a dampening state. The combination of surface based instability advecting north into the area, strong shear, modest mid-level lapse rates and forcing associated with the approaching H5 shortwave and entrance region of an upper level jet helped produce an environment capable of damaging straight-line winds, small to moderate size hail and isolated tornadoes.

The National Weather Service in Charleston South Carolina confirmed a weak, brief tornado just east of Gifford in Hampton County, South Carolina on 04/03/2017. A National Weather Service storm survey team found that a tornado touched down about 2.7 miles east of Gifford, SC, then traveled approximately one third of a mile east-northeast before lifting near Thomas Hamilton Road. The damage was limited to uprooting of small soft and hardwood trees. Maximum wind speeds were estimated to be 80 mph. More widespread tree damage was just south of the tornado, associated with straight-line winds.

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

2 minutes of warning. NWS CHS issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:41 UTC, 2 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:05 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:09 UTC and running to 22:22 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:58 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.

Allendale (AQX), 17 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Charleston,SC radar (KCLX), 27 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:40 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 2017 tornado in South CarolinaEvery tornado in South Carolina since 1950Warnings in force in South Carolina nowThe forecast where you are

39 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.