F0 tornado, Clarksboro, New Jersey, September 2, 1998

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

September 2, 1998

Touchdown

7:50 PM EDT (23:50 UTC)

Path length

0.3 miles (0.5 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Gloucester County

Touchdown point

39.780, -75.200

Lift-off point

39.780, -75.200

Record number

1372

A series of severe thunderstorms produced wind damage throughout most of Gloucester County as well as a weak tornado (F0 on the Fujita Scale) in East Greenwich Township. A couple of homes were damaged by downed trees. Two homes were also damaged by lightning and the ensuing fires in Woodbury and East Greenwich Township. No serious injuries were reported. About 3,000 homes and businesses lost power. The least damage was reported in the far northwestern part of the county. The first thunderstorm started to produce wind damage in Paulsboro around 745 p.m. EDT. The thunderstorm peaked in intensity over East Greenwich and Mantua Townships. It was within East Greenwich Township that the funnel cloud which threatened both Chester and Delaware Counties touched down as a weak tornado around County House Road at 750 p.m. EDT. It briefly stayed on the ground before lifting. The Brown and Green Terrace areas were hit the hardest within the township. Shingles were ripped from roofs and at least one house was struck by a tree. A large tree also fell across the Conrail tracks. Straight-line wind gusts with the thunderstorm reached 77 mph in Clarksboro within East Greenwich Township and 63 mph in Washington Township. Wind damage from the first thunderstorm continued southeast with trees, limbs and wires knocked down in Pitman and Washington and Monroe Townships. In Cecil (within Monroe Township) one-quarter of a mile of a county road was blocked by downed trees. A second severe thunderstorm entered the county in Logan Township around 9 p.m. EDT and proceeded to down additional trees, limbs and wires in Woolwich Township, Swedesboro, Clayton, Washington Township, Newfield and Franklin Township.

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

13 minutes of warning. NWS PHI issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:37 UTC, 13 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:10 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 10:34 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 Philadelphia radar (KDIX), 70 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:47 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 1998 tornado in New JerseyEvery tornado in New Jersey since 1950Warnings in force in New Jersey nowThe forecast where you are

6 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.