F3 Tornado Hits South Carolina

[dvdweatherwizard]

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT...CORRECTION FOR TYPO
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE COLUMBIA SC
640 PM EST FRI DEC 10 2004

...RESULTS OF STORM DAMAGE SURVEY...

A NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE METEOROLOGIST CONDUCTED A STORM SURVEY
THIS AFTERNOON OF DAMAGE THAT OCCURRED EARLY THIS MORNING IN
ORANGEBURG AND CALHOUN COUNTIES. THE DAMAGE WAS DETERMINED TO BE
CAUSED BY TWO TORNADOES.

A TORNADO WATCH WAS IN EFFECT...AND TORNADO WARNINGS WERE IN
EFFECT...PRECEDING THE FOLLOWING EVENTS.

IN ORANGEBURG COUNTY...
AROUND 450 AM EST...A TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN ABOUT 6 MILES NORTH
NORTHEAST OF ORANGEBURG...ON COULTER ROAD...NEAR THE CALHOUN COUNTY
LINE. A BRICK BUILT CHURCH WAS DESTROYED...TWO MOBILE HOMES WERE
DEMOLISHED...AND SEVERAL SMALL UTILITY BUILDINGS WERE DEMOLISHED.
ONE INJURY OCCURRED. THE DAMAGE APPEARED CONSISTENT WITH THAT OF AN
F3 ON THE FUJITA SCALE (SEE NOTE BELOW).

IN CALHOUN COUNTY...
AROUND 500 AM EST...ABOUT ONE MILE SOUTH OF ST MATTHEWS...NEAR THE
INTERSECTION OF US HIGHWAY 601 AND 176...A PORTION OF A CONCRETE
ROOF OF A WAREHOUSE WAS TORN OFF...WINDOW DAMAGE OCCURRED TO A
COMMERCIAL BUILDING...A SMALL UTILITY BUILDING WAS DESTROYED...AND A
VEHICLE WAS MOVED. THE DAMAGE APPEARED CONSISTENT WITH THAT OF AN
F2 ON THE FUJITA SCALE (SEE NOTE BELOW).

NOTE: THE FUJITA SCALE WAS DEVLOPED BY DR. TED FUJITA IN 1971. IT
RANKS TORNADO DAMAGE ON A SCALE FROM F0 (WEAKEST) TO F5
(STRONGEST). F2 TORNADOS HAVE ESTIMATED WINDS IN THE 113 TO 157 MPH
RANGE. F3 TORNADOS HAVE ESTIMATED WINDS IN THE 158 TO 206 MPH RANGE.


Now, to my knowledge, there have only been 6 other F3 or higher tornadoes in South Carolina that have hit in the month of December (in the period from 1950-1995), and those all hit on the same date, December 13, 1973. There were 5 F3's and 1 F4 on that date; otherwise, I couldn't find any other instances of F3 or higher tornadoes in SC in December. I should note also that the tornadoes on December 13, 1973 all occured between 1 and 3 pm, while this recent F3 hit at 450 am according to the Columbia NWS. I used http://www.tornadoproject.com/ to gather that data.

[dvdweatherwizard]

If you want to see some maps from the December 13th, 1973 incident to see what the setup looked like then, you can go to http://vortex.plymouth.edu/reanal-u.html.

[yoda]

Thanks for the information!

[Stormsfury]

I was too young to remember that 1973 outbreak, but my late father told me that one of those tornadoes passed right over the Naval Hospital in Charleston, and broke out every car window in the parking out, and broke almost all of the windows on the hospital itself ...

Wow ... I did see the storm report, but was unaware that the tornado was that strong. I had a feeling when storms began erupting that night, scattered SVR WX was to be expected given the rapidly deteoriating conditions, especially right along the triple point. a strong s/w riding along the front, along with a 140 kt+ jet streak along the RRQ and increasing divergence aloft was suggestive for a possible tornado or two with any supercells out ahead, but the overall event itself caught me quite offguard, even though, the GFS did well in predicting this eruption 72 hours before the event ...

SF

[SouthernWx]

I was only 12, and don't remember a great deal about the December 13, 1973 tornado outbreak.....but know it began in north Georgia, with a F3 tornado occurring in Hall county near Gainesville.

That was a stretch over very violent weather across the Peach state.....from March 1973 to March 1975, when a lot of intense tornadoes struck Georgia, and unfortunately quite a few lives lost.

[michaelwmoss]

We have had quite a few tornadoes in the United States for December. That is a bit of an unusual number of twisters, even for the US as a whole