EF1 tornado in Burlington County, New Jersey

A tornado touched down on the evening of July 29 in a heavily

forested area in the eastern portion of Woodland Twp in southern

New Jersey. The start location is estimated to be between

Stevenson Rd, where survey crews found no damage, and Whiting Rd

about a mile and a half away, where tree damage was observed. The

estimate, also aided by radar, places the start just west of the

border of Burlington and Ocean Counties, though no damage was directly observed in Burlington County due to accessibility issues. After touching down, the

tornado moved in an east-northeasterly direction and quickly crossed the Ocean County border.

A strong shortwave trough moved east-southeastward out of the Great Lakes region on July 29. An associated, strengthening surface low also tracked out of the Great Lakes and into upstate New York. A warm front associated with this low moved through most of New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania during the late morning and early afternoon hours. This front, combined with the remains of widespread convection to the west from the previous overnight and morning hours, brought significant cloud cover to the eastern mid-Atlantic for much of the day on the 29th. This was mainly in the form of mid and high level cloud cover, however, and temperatures still warmed to near seasonal levels behind the warm front, allowing moderate to strong instability to build. Meanwhile, the robust surface and upper level disturbances approaching the region brought both strong forcing and unseasonably strong wind shear. By mid-afternoon, an unusually favorable convective environment existed over eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

The result of this environment was a rare tornado outbreak across the area. Initially, during the mid-afternoon hours, mixed convective modes over east-central Pennsylvania produced a couple instances of damaging wind and brief tornadoes as storms attempted to overcome cloud cover and some light stratiform rain in the area. With time, as storms moved into better instability and a less contaminated environment over far eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey, they took on more supercellular structures. Multiple cyclic supercells would go on to produce several tornadoes, three of them strong (EF2+) over eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Convection persisted past the sunset hour with little to no loss in intensity due to the strong forcing. The only thing that put an end to the outbreak was the coastline, as storms moved offshore towards 9 to 10PM local time. Even offshore, one supercell continued to exhibit strong rotation and likely produced a strong waterspout for tens of miles over the Atlantic.

Fortunately, and miraculously, no serious injuries or loss of life occurred as a result of this outbreak. With the passage of a cold front late on the evening of the 29th, cooler, drier, and much less active weather would grace the region for several days as clean-up efforts began.