EF0 tornado, Garfield Park, Delaware, July 9, 2015

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

July 9, 2015

Touchdown

7:50 PM EDT (23:50 UTC)

Lifted

7:51 PM EDT (23:51 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.5 miles (0.8 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$200,000

County

New Castle County

Touchdown point

39.709, -75.550

Lift-off point

39.709, -75.540

Record number

1507091750-01

7 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS PHI, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 65 mph.

• Telephone pole down. No survey.

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

A line of strong to severe thunderstorms formed in the warm sector of the Maryland panhandle moved through Delaware during the evening on the 9th. The line also spawned an EF-0 tornado in New Castle County. About 3,700 homes and businesses lost power in New Castle County. All power was restored by the evening of the 10th. A warm front lifted northeast into central New Jersey during the afternoon of the 9th. This permitted sufficient daytime heating preceding an approaching cold front. In addition, there was enough shear in the atmosphere for a tornado to occur.

An EF-0 tornado occurred in eastern New Castle County in Minquadale (Brandywine Hundred). | |The tornado touched down near a trailer park off of New Castle Avenue. Eight units of the mobile home village and apartments on New Castle Avenue were damaged. A downed transformer went through one bedroom. Shingles and gutters were ripped from other homes. Six families were displaced and the Red Cross opened an emergency shelter at William Penn High School. The tornado damage extended eastward with a telephone pole sheered off and a tree down on Revis Avenue. Farther east, additional damage occurred on Harbor View Drive where roof damage and a wall collapse occurred at an industrial park. Several trees were also knocked down on Dock View Drive. ||The EF-0 tornado path length was about half a mile with a maximum path width of 75 yards. The estimated maximum wind speeds were 65 mph.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 20:57 UTC and running to 00:39 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 19:35 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 Dover AFB radar (KDOX), 99 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:49 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 2015 tornado in DelawareEvery tornado in Delaware since 1950Warnings in force in Delaware nowThe forecast where you are

9 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.