F1 tornado, Four Mile, New Jersey, July 27, 2004

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 27, 2004

Touchdown

5:00 PM EDT (21:00 UTC)

Path length

2.6 miles (4.2 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

2

Property damage

$500,000

County

Burlington County

Touchdown point

39.880, -74.580

Lift-off point

39.880, -74.530

Record number

487

An F1 (Fujita Scale) tornado touched down in Woodland Township, injured two people, damaged the New Lisbon Development Center and about 350 acres of trees in the Brendan T. Byrne State Forest. The Development Center is a state run home for about 500 developmentally disabled adults. The tornado touched down in a wooded area about one mile south of the intersections of State Routes 70 and 72. A second much smaller and weaker funnel also briefly touched down in that area. The tornado proceeded east through the New Lisbon Development Center where all the property damage and injuries occurred and crossed State Route 72 into the Brendan Byrne State Forest. Two staff members (male and female) were injured. The male was injured when the van he was in was overturned by the tornado. The female was injured when flying glass and debris shattered the windows of the separate vehicle she was in on State Route 72. A thrift store on campus was destroyed and several apartments in the same attached building was also destroyed. None of the residents were injured. The roof and walls from the thrift shop were tossed more than one hundred yards. A metal bench was found in a tree. The tornado also badly damaged the administration center building. A tractor-trailer used for storage near the thrift shop was found in the woods. Several vehicles were overturned. The tornado uprooted and snapped trees, bent bird cage poles and ripped light poles from the ground. One-hundred-year-old trees were snapped. The tornado then proceeded into the Brendan Byrne State Forest where approximately 350 acres of trees were damaged or destroyed. Several hiking trails were closed through the 31st until the debris was cleared. The tornado lifted in the forest, but debris from it fell in Manchester Township in adjacent Ocean County. New Jersey State Route 72 was closed through the night and about 100 people lost power. The tornado was rate an F1 with maximum winds estimated at the high end of the scale, approximately 110 miles an hour. The tornado remained on the ground for about 2.6 miles and its path width was around 100 yards.

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

3 minutes of warning. NWS PHI issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:57 UTC, 3 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:30 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 20:00 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), 14 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:57 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 2004 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.