F0 tornado, Highlands, New Jersey, August 13, 1997

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.

Rating

F0

Date

August 13, 1997

Touchdown

1:00 PM EDT (17:00 UTC)

Path length

1.2 miles (1.9 km)

Path width

73 yards (67 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Monmouth County

Touchdown point

40.400, -73.980

Lift-off point

40.400, -73.980

Record number

560

A F0 (Fujita Scale) touched down briefly in Middletown Township and Highlands Borough before it went into Sandy Hook Bay and dissipated. The path length was about 1.2 miles and the path width about 75 yards. The tornado damaged several cars and homes, and uprooted and/or snapped numerous trees, but no injuries were reported. The tornado touched down in northeastern Middletown Township near Pape Drive and Navasink Avenue. It moved northeast and uprooted a tree on Williams Street that crushed three parked cars. Another car was burned when it came in contact with downed wires on Buttermilk Valley Road. A tree also crushed an awning in the Shadow Lane Mobile Home Park. In Highlands Borough, a shed was blown off its foundation and carried by the tornado between two houses. Other structural damage was mainly confined to broken windows, torn shingles and gutters. Maximum wind speeds were estimated at the high end of the F0 scale at about 70 mph.

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

Belmar-Farmdale (BLM), 28 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Philadelphia radar (KDIX), 62 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 17:01 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.

The live radar over the trackEvery 1997 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.