F1 tornado, Runnemede, New Jersey, July 3, 1994

1. F040 to 72 mph

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

2. F173 to 112 mphthis tornado

   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.

Rating

F1

Date

July 3, 1994

Touchdown

3:30 PM EDT (19:30 UTC)

Path length

1.0 miles (1.6 km)

Path width

500 yards (457 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000 to $500,000

County

Camden County

Touchdown point

39.770, -74.980

Record number

697

A F1 (Fujita Scale) tornado touched down in the Blackwood area of Gloucester Township in Camden County. The tornado touched down along Davistown Road where a large tree was uprooted and a five foot diameter maple tree was snapped. Damage continued northeast across Brooklyn Road to the Heinz Bakery Plant on Little Gloucester Road. Silo caps, roof vents and roof tar paper were either blown or peeled off. The greatest damage and area of maximum tornadic strength was inflicted upon the Kindercare Learning Center on Broadacres Drive. Fortunately this occurred on a Sunday and none of the usual 100 children were inside. Pine trees near the center were uprooted. Most of the roof of the center was lifted off. Aluminum siding was peeled off. Insulation and siding were found in trees 200 yards from the center. Its central air conditioning unit was blown 20 yards. Several chain link fences near the center were turned down and a dumpster was flipped over. Two trailers sitting on a loading dock of a supermarket near the Kindercare Center were blown over. The supermarket's roof ventilation system also sustained damage. The last tornado related damaged occurred about one quarter of a mile northeast of the Kindercare where large limbs were snapped off. No injuries were reported.

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.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 07:32 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.

Philadelphia Intl (PHL), 24 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The live radar over the trackEvery 1994 tornado in New JerseyEvery tornado in New Jersey since 1950Warnings in force in New Jersey nowThe forecast where you are

1 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.