EF1 tornado, Owings to Cooks Xrds, South Carolina, August 17, 2021

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

August 17, 2021

Touchdown

6:18 PM EDT (22:18 UTC)

Lifted

6:21 PM EDT (22:21 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

1.4 miles (2.3 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$20,000

County

Laurens County

Touchdown point

34.728, -82.144

Lift-off point

34.746, -82.131

Record number

2108171618-01

30 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS GSP, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 95 mph.

• Trees snapped and uprooted.
• Shed destroyed and shingles off house.
• Trees uprooted. Shed damaged.
• Softwoods snapped and hardwoods uprooted.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

Tropical Storm Fred made landfall in the Florida Panhandle on the 16th and lifted steadily north through Georgia and into the southern Appalachians during the 16th and throughout the 17th. Tropical moisture and enhanced wind shear associated with the remnant circulation resulted in a few brief, weak tornadoes and heavy rainfall across upstate South Carolina.

Although an NWS storm survey could not find any physical evidence of damage, video posted on Social Media revealed a small vortex clearly in touch with the ground and lifting debris into the area crossing I-385 between Thompson Rd and Harmony Church Rd.

NWS storm survey confirmed an EF1 tornado in extreme northern Laurens County, northeast of Fountain Inn. The tornado touched down east of Pennington Rd, just north of the Scuffletown Rd intersection, tracking north-northeast, crossing the southern end of Ritchie Rd, across Pollard Rd and Highway 418, apparently lifting just west of Thackston Rd. Damage was primarily limited to multiple uprooted hardwoods and some snapped softwood trees. One of these trees fell on and damaged a home on Ritchie Rd. A shed was also destroyed and a home received minor roof damage on Highway 418 just east of Pollard Rd.

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

21 minutes of warning. NWS GSP issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:57 UTC, 21 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 14:44 UTC and running to 22:37 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:35 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), 18 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:16 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 2021 tornado in South CarolinaEvery tornado in South Carolina since 1950Warnings in force in South Carolina nowThe forecast where you are

21 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.