From tornado threat to clear skies: Why severe weather missed the Grand Strand
Grand Strand residents were told to prep for severe weather and storms capable of producing tornadoes this week, but by the time high winds and heavy rain were expected in the area, clouds were breaking up and the sun was peeking through.
Other regions of the Carolinas saw damaging winds and ominous clouds, but the Myrtle Beach area remained unscathed.
“It was very close to being a different story,” said Steven Pfaff, warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Wilmington, N.C.
The storm was pushed offshore and a powerful tornado likely began developing near the Grand Strand before creating a waterspout about 10 miles off the Cape Fear coast in North Carolina, Pfaff said. If that tornado had been on land, it would have been dangerous.
Earlier this week, meteorologists began warning residents across the Carolinas and the Southeast for storms, including Horry County. The storm’s path ended up essentially splitting in two, hitting the Raleigh, N.C., area and near Savannah, Ga., but avoiding the Myrtle Beach area. Many businesses closed early and Horry County Schools switched to virtual instruction in light of the forecast.
“Thank goodness it didn’t happen because it was close to being pretty significant,” Pfaff said. “But the double-edged sword is you got a lot of people that prepare, paying attention to it and nothing does happen.”
Part of the “recipe” for severe storms is instability in the air, Pfaff said, but Myrtle Beach and the surrounding area maintained cloud cover, which kept the atmosphere from getting too unstable.
The shift in the forecast was a welcome change, and the skies were clear by Thursday evening. Pfaff said the forecast was actually relatively accurate, seeing as the storm developed around 15 miles from where it was projected. But since it shifted east, it was off the coast and no longer a threat.
“It was a matter of miles, I think being able to identify a threat a couple days out and be off by a matter of 15-20 miles is pretty amazing,” he said.
Last month, a tornado in Brunswick County, N.C., left three people dead as it touched down as an EF3 on the Enhanced Fujita damage scale with winds of around 160 mph. The area was under a severe thunderstorm warning but developed quickly and moved fast toward the area.
While the weather in the Myrtle Beach area Thursday ended up being less severe than predicted, the opposite was true in Brunswick County in February. Pfaff said the difference between the two events lies in which elements of the storm shifted to produce a different reality than the forecast.
“The Brunswick one was more of a challenge with the mechanics of that individual storm, whereas the challenge with yesterday’s weather was assessing the environment as the potential for storms was increasing,” he said.
This story was originally published March 19, 2021 at 10:19 AM.
