Tornadoes · United States · New Jersey · 1995

F0 tornado, Deptford, New Jersey, July 22, 1995

This F0 tornado ran 0.8 miles across Gloucester County on July 22, 1995, touching down at 3:30 PM EDT and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $500,000 to $5 million 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
July 22, 1995
Touchdown
3:30 PM EDT (19:30 UTC)
Path length
0.8 miles (1.3 km)
Path width
50 yards (46 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$500,000 to $5 million
County
Gloucester County
Touchdown point
39.850, -75.130
Record number
937

What the Weather Service recorded

A severe thunderstorm caused wind damage in the northeast part of Gloucester County. The damage was exacerbated by a weak tornado (F0 on the Fujita Scale) in Deptford Township. The tornado touched down just east of New Jersey State Route 47 in the Southview Road (Near West Hampshire Road) Red Stone Ridge area. The tornado tore down large trees. One damaged a home. It also tore sections of roofs from several homes and knocked down one chimney. A mile stretch of New Jersey State Route 47 was blocked for several hours because of downed trees. Wind damage from severe thunderstorms also occurred in Mantua as up to two foot wide trees were uprooted. Uprooted trees also occurred in Franklinville and Woodbury. In West Deptford straight line winds knocked over hundreds of trees and pulled a swim club roof off. A 40,000 gallon oil spill occurred in the Delaware River when the damaging winds disrupted an oil transfer from a tanker just off West Deptford's Coastal Eagle Point Refinery.

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

The warnings

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

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
20:23 UTC21:00 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningPHI

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 forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 06:04 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 radar

The Philadelphia radar (KDIX), 62 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:29 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.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1995 tornado in New JerseyEvery tornado in New Jersey since 1950Warnings in force in New Jersey nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of July 22, 1995

2 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
July 228:21 PM CDTF0Hemphill, TX0.123
July 228:55 PM CDTF0Cross, AR1.010$500 to $5,000

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.