More Tornadoes Confirmed After NJ’s Wild Weather Weekend

NEW JERSEY — Six tornadoes whipped through New Jersey on Saturday night, said the National Weather Service in its latest update, close to the state record for the most to hit in one day.

Weather officials confirmed that tornadoes touched down in Crosswicks (Burlington) and from Allentown to Cream Ridge (Monmouth), adding to the storm tallies in those counties and increasing the statewide total to six. There are no known injuries or deaths in NJ.

Patch storm coverage:

Storm surveys indicate that the two additional tornadoes in Crosswicks and Cream Ridge had max sustained winds of 90 miles per hour, said the NWS’s office in Mount Holly. The length of the storm paths for these two locations, and the maximum storm width, has not been disclosed yet.

One person died in Sussex County, DE from the storms.

State data shows that on November 15, 1989 there were seven tornadoes in one day — so, Saturday's total does not hit a new record.

Earlier, tornadoes were confirmed in Sea Girt, Cinnaminson to Moorestown, Howell, and Jackson. The tornadoes closer to the shore all had peak winds of 130 miles per hour, measuring an EF-2 on the Enhanced Fujita scale (which meteorologists use to classify tornadoes). The scale goes from EF-0 (winds below 85 mph) up to EF-5 (winds over 200 mph).

The two Burlington County tornadoes and the recently-confirmed one in Allentown and Cream Ridge measured an EF-1, said the National Weather Service.

Another storm in Burlington County, which blew through Palmyra and Riverton, was determined to be straight-line winds and not a tornado. The storm in Palmyra and Riverton had max winds of 100 miles per hour according to weather officials.

Data from the office of the state climatologist shows the year NJ had the most tornadoes was in 1989, when the state measured 19 tornadoes over the course of the year.

Since then, the highest annual count was in 2021, when there were 13 tornadoes statewide. This data is published by Rutgers' NJ Agriculture Experiment Station.