Tornadoes · United States · New Jersey · 1991

F0 tornado, Burlington County, New Jersey, August 19, 1991

This F0 tornado ran 1.5 miles across Burlington County on August 19, 1991, touching down at 8:35 PM EDT and reaching 70 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $500 to $5,000 of property damage.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  1. F040 to 72 mphthis tornado

    Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

  2. F173 to 112 mph

    Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

  3. F2113 to 157 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. F3158 to 206 mph

    Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

  5. F4207 to 260 mph

    Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

  6. F5261 to 318 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.

The record

Rating
F0
Date
August 19, 1991
Touchdown
8:35 PM EDT (00:35 UTC)
Path length
1.5 miles (2.4 km)
Path width
70 yards (64 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$500 to $5,000
County
Burlington County
Touchdown point
40.000, -74.800
Record number
1056

The forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 06:41 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 air that afternoon

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.

Atlantic City In, NJ (KACY), 12:00Z

11.4 hours after it, 66 km from the path. August 20, 1991.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Atlantic City In, NJ at 12:00Z on 1991-08-20Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 772 joules per kilogram, CIN -39, lifted condensation level 615 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Atlantic City In, NJ at 12:00Z on 1991-08-20The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 9 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 28 knots.1939587897Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
772 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-39 J/kg
Surface CAPE
75 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
615 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
28 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
2 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
9 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
65 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
1.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Mcguire Afb (WRI), 18 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
00:00 UTC

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1991 tornado in New JerseyEvery tornado in New Jersey since 1950Warnings in force in New Jersey nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of August 19, 1991

6 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
August 1912:30 PM EDTF1Suffolk, NY0.240
August 191:00 PM EDTF1Suffolk, NY0.2100
August 192:30 PM EDTF0Duval, FL0.210$50 to $500
August 194:30 PM ESTF0Pulaski, IN0.110$5,000 to $50,000
August 195:53 PM EDTF0Dearborn, IN0.110$500 to $5,000
August 196:20 PM EDTF0Marion, OH0.120

What this means

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.

Sources

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.