EF1 tornado, Haglettville, Delaware, May 22, 2014

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

May 22, 2014

Touchdown

4:54 PM EDT (20:54 UTC)

Lifted

4:55 PM EDT (20:55 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.6 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

2

Property damage

$150,000

County

Kent County

Touchdown point

39.098, -75.667

Lift-off point

39.096, -75.661

Record number

1405221454-01

31 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS PHI, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 105 mph.

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

A very strong cold front and strong winds above the ground helped produce supercell type thunderstorms across Delaware during the second half of the afternoon on the 22nd. One confirmed tornado, large and destructive hail and pockets of wind damage occurred throughout the state. The confirmed tornado with two injuries occurred in West Dover Hundred in Kent County. Over 3,000 homes and businesses lost power throughout the state.

An EF1 tornado with an estimated maximum wind speed of 105 mph touched down in West Dover Hundred. It touched down just west of Darling Drive and lifted just east of Darling Farm Road. Two people were injured as the worst wind damage occurred on Darling Drive. A 58-year-old man and his wife were injured after the tornado elevated, spun and then leveled their mobile home. The man had a bureau, a file cabinet and a mattress over him. The tornado damaged about seventeen homes in the area, leaving four condemned and uninhabitable. The tornado also snapped five poles. A couple of thousand homes and businesses were also without power. The tornado was embedded within a swath of other damaging winds. The estimated path length was 0.35 miles and the estimated maximum path width was 50 yards.

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

25 minutes of warning. NWS PHI issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:29 UTC, 25 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:00 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 18:18 UTC and running to 22:49 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 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:55 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 Dover AFB radar (KDOX), 36 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:54 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 2014 tornado in DelawareEvery tornado in Delaware since 1950Warnings in force in Delaware nowThe forecast where you are

5 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.