TornadoLookup

Home / Delaware / Kent

EF2 tornado in Kent County, Delaware

Tornado August 4, 2020 · Kent County, Delaware

EF2
Rating
35.8 mi
Whole path
500 yd
Path width

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Kent County → New Castle County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 500 yards (0.28 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF2 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF2 is considerable damage: roofs torn off well-built houses, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, consistent with estimated gusts of 111–135 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

The tornado touched down in the vicinity of the Eagle Meadows

Apartment Homes on Sorghum Mill Road in Kent County then moved

across Route 10. It tracked nearly parallel to South State Street

through Anneville, the south side of Dover, where significant tree

damage occurred, including some treetops shredded from Poplar

Lane to the neighborhood around Steele Road. It was here where

some roof damage occurred to some homes especially due to fallen

trees, however a garage was significantly damaged on Dyer's Tree

Farm. The tornado then crossed over Route 13 near the Eden

Medical Center and very near the William Henry Middle School. A

couple sections of the school's roof were blown off along with

some tree damage nearby. A warehouse adjacent to the school had a

few sections of its metal walls torn off and a couple of tractor

trailer trailers flipped onto their side. The tornado then crossed

over Walker Road at Route 15 then to Westminster Village at Dover

near the intersection of Route 15 and College Road.

The tornado continued northward just east of Cheswold where it may have briefly lifted for a time with discontinuous tree damage

before moving through the east side of Smyrna where more notable

tree damage occurred. A 96 mph wind gust was measured at a

Delaware Department of Transportation weather station located on

Route 1 just north of Smyrna as the tornadic circulation passed

by. The tornado continued north-northwestward as it crossed Duck Creek into New Castle County.

The wider storm

Tropical Storm Isaias brought high winds, heavy rain, several tornadoes, and coastal flooding to the mid-Atlantic region, becoming the most impactful tropical cyclone to impact most of the region since Sandy in 2012.

Began near Lebanon (39.1049, -75.5001).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

2 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 904089. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

Tornadoes near your address

See every tornado that passed near a place you know, measured to its path.