EF1 tornado in Ocean County, New Jersey

The tornado estimated to have touched down in the New Jersey pine barrens over Burlington County moved into Ocean County, where damage was first observed. The bulk of the damage consisted of large snapped and uprooted pine and spruce

trees with a few red maple trees. Some of the heaviest damage occurred on Old

Cedar Bridge Rd near the Cedar Bridge Tavern Historic Site. The

tornado crossed Route 72 before moving through over a mile of

inaccessible forest land. Tree damage was found again along Jones

Rd. From there the tornado moved into the Wells Mills area where

the path of tree damage continued. A number of snapped trees and

large limbs were found in the area of Wells Mills County Park. The

tornado path appeared to end a few hundred yards east of this

location. The degree of tree damage along the middle portion of

the track was consistent with a higher end EF1 tornado.

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.