EF1 tornado, Sandtown to Smyrna Arpt, Delaware, August 4, 2020

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 4, 2020

Touchdown

8:25 AM EDT (12:25 UTC)

Lifted

8:30 AM EDT (12:30 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

2.1 miles (3.4 km)

Path width

400 yards (366 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

Kent and Sussex counties

Touchdown point

38.893, -75.456

Lift-off point

38.921, -75.458

Record number

2008040625-02

Tropical Storm Isaias brought high winds, heavy rain, several tornadoes, and coastal flooding to the mid-Atlantic region, becoming the most impactful tropical cyclone to impact most of the region since Sandy in 2012.

The tornado touched down in the vicinity of Road 258 south of |Sandtown Road, then tracked across a section of mostly open fields|but damaged some trees along the way. It then tracked down the |western portion of Sandtown Road closer to Route 10 damaging |several homes and snapping and uprooting several trees. A home had|some windows blown out along with roof damage, another home had |its roof blown off and there was a large garage that had its back |sheet metal wall torn off. The tornado crossed Route 10 near the |intersection with Sandtown Road and moved across the Sandtown |Landfill facility where additional trees were uprooted or snapped,|two front-end loaders had windows blown out and some truck |trailers were flipped over. The tornado exited the landfill and |may have dissipated before reaching the Maryland-Delaware state |line. Doppler radar data showed rotation and a notable tornado |debris signature near and just northwest of Sandtown as debris was|tossed into the air.

A tornado touched down north of the intersection of Shawnee Rd and Old Shawnee Rd in southwest Milford (Sussex County) around 8:25 AM on August|4. Tree damage was found in this area. The tornado initially moved north-northeast as it tracked towards the Kent County line. There was extensive tree damage from Meadow Brook and |Evergreen lanes north to Haven Lake, which divides the two counties. Numerous trees were uprooted or snapped. The tornado remained on the ground as it crossed the lake into Kent County.

Soon after crossing Haven Lake into Kent County, the tornado's direction of motion shifted considerably, from north-northeast to northwest. The tornado crossed |Williamsville Road producing additional tree damage, then lifted |as it proceeded northwest west of Milford Harrington Highway. Due to the extensive|tree damage, power lines and some poles were also down along |portions of the tornados path. Several of the trees were of |softwood and snapped at their trunks, which is indicative of 100 |mph winds and this was used to rate this tornado. This wind speed |corresponds to an EF1 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale. Doppler radar |data showed a well defined tornado debris signature that quickly |developed on the west and northwest side of Milford as the |circulation moved through.

The tornado touched down in the vicinity of the Eagle Meadows |Apartment Homes on Sorghum Mill Road in Kent County then moved |across Route 10. It tracked nearly parallel to South State Street |through Anneville, the south side of Dover, where significant tree|damage occurred, including some treetops shredded from Poplar |Lane to the neighborhood around Steele Road. It was here where |some roof damage occurred to some homes especially due to fallen |trees, however a garage was significantly damaged on Dyer���s Tree|Farm. The tornado then crossed over Route 13 near the Eden |Medical Center and very near the William Henry Middle School. A |couple sections of the school���s roof were blown off along with |some tree damage nearby. A warehouse adjacent to the school had a |few sections of its metal walls torn off and a couple of tractor |trailer trailers flipped onto their side. The tornado then crossed|over Walker Road at Route 15 then to Westminster Village at Dover|near the intersection of Route 15 and College Road.||The tornado continued northward just east of Cheswold where it may have briefly lifted for a time with discontinuous tree damage |before moving through the east side of Smyrna where more notable |tree damage occurred. A 96 mph wind gust was measured at a |Delaware Department of Transportation weather station located on |Route 1 just north of Smyrna as the tornadic circulation passed |by. The tornado continued north-northwestward as it crossed Duck Creek into New Castle County.

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

7 minutes of warning. NWS PHI issued a tornado warning for this county at 12:18 UTC, 7 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 12:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 06:27 UTC and running to 15:54 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 05:53 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 Dover AFB radar (KDOX), 9 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 12:27 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 2020 tornado in DelawareEvery tornado in Delaware since 1950Warnings in force in Delaware nowThe forecast where you are

30 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.