Tornadoes · United States · New Jersey · 2006

F0 tornado, Paulsboro, New Jersey, June 2, 2006

This F0 tornado ran 0.8 miles across Gloucester County on June 2, 2006, touching down at 10:20 PM EDT and reaching 250 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $100,000 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
June 2, 2006
Touchdown
10:20 PM EDT (02:20 UTC)
Path length
0.8 miles (1.3 km)
Path width
250 yards (229 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$100,000
County
Gloucester County
Touchdown point
39.800, -75.230
Lift-off point
39.800, -75.230
Record number
591

What the Weather Service recorded

A fast moving thunderstorm tracked northward during the evening of June 2nd across southern New Jersey, then merged with additional thunderstorms arriving from the west as it entered Gloucester County about 10:20 PM EDT. The merging thunderstorm produced an F0 tornado in East Greenwich Township, New Jersey. The National Weather Service Office in Mount Holly, New Jersey conducted a storm survey and confirmed that a weak tornado with 65 mph winds touched down. The path length of the tornado was three-quarters of a mile and the path width was mostly around 100 yards, but at its maximum it reached 250 yards. Numerous trees were knocked down and snapped in a six block area. Three homes sustained major damage from downed trees, and another twenty homes had minor damage. Roofing material from a house on County Lane Road was found a quarter of a mile away near the Mount Royal firehouse.

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
18:00 UTC09:00 UTCFlash Flood WatchPHI

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 00:45 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), 72 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:21 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.

What was reported nearby

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

Time (UTC)ReportWhereCountyRemark
02:15 UTCTSTM WND DMG6 Sse Tinicum TownshipGloucester, NJTREES KNOCKED DOWN AND SNAPPED IN A FOUR BLOCK AREA IN EAST GREENWICH TOWNSHIP. COUPLE OF TREES ON HOMES.
02:20 UTCTORNADO 02 Sse PaulsboroGloucester, NJA TORNADO HAS BEEN CONFIRMED IN EAST GREENWICH TOWNSHIP. THE TORNADO WAS RATED AN F0 ON THE FUJITA SCALE WITH MAXIMUM WINDS OF 65 MPH. PATH LENGTH OF 3/4 OF A MILE AND PATH WIDTH WAS MOSTLY AROUND 100 YARDS BUT AT ITS MA
03:35 UTCFLOODPembertonBurlington, NJHEAVY RAINFALL FLOODED A FIELD WHICH THEN FLOODED A NEARBY ROADWAY.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2006 tornado in New JerseyEvery tornado in New Jersey since 1950Warnings in force in New Jersey nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of June 2, 2006

1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
June 22:20 PM CDTF0McLean, IL0.230

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.