EF1 tornado, New Egypt to Archers Corner, New Jersey, September 16, 2010

1. EF065 to 85 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 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. EF3136 to 165 mph

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. EF5over 200 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

EF1

Date

September 16, 2010

Touchdown

6:05 PM EDT (22:05 UTC)

Lifted

6:10 PM EDT (22:10 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

2.2 miles (3.6 km)

Path width

250 yards (229 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$25,000

County

Ocean County

Touchdown point

40.060, -74.490

Lift-off point

40.070, -74.450

Record number

1009161605-01

A squall line of strong to severe thunderstorms moved across most of New Jersey during the late afternoon and early evening on the 16th. At the same time, a warm front was advancing north through the state. The added shear or change of wind speed and direction with height near the proximity of this front caused most of the severe thunderstorms as well as one tornado in Ocean County. About 50,000 homes and businesses lost power, many of them in Middlesex, Monmouth and Ocean Counties. All power was restored by the evening of the 17th. Many shore high school football games were postponed because of the dangerous weather.

An EF-1 tornado touched down in Plumsted Township in Ocean County at about 605 p.m. EDT on the 16th. The tornado remained on the ground for about 2.2 miles. The tornado touched down just north of the intersection of Long Swamp Road and Archertown Road in the township. The tornado traveled eastnortheast crossing Ocean County Route 539 and lifted near Hawkins Road or Prospertown-Colliers Mills Road near Colliers Lake. The worst damage occurred along East Colliers Mills Road where a house suffered serious roof damage and a dormer was blown off. A neighboring house also suffered roof damage. One small barn was destroyed and another was blown over. A few vehicles were damaged by fallen trees. Numerous small trees and a few large ones were snapped along the tornado's path. An estimated 300 trees were knocked down. The tornado's path length was about 2.2 miles, its maximum path width 250 yards and the estimated maximum wind speeds were 90 mph.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

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, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:20 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 22:06 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.

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

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

The live radar over the trackEvery 2010 tornado in New JerseyEvery tornado in New Jersey since 1950Warnings in force in New Jersey nowThe forecast where you are

14 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.