SOUTH JERSEY (KYW Newsradio) — The National Weather Service confirmed two tornadoes touched down on Thursday in Burlington and Gloucester counties, but emergency alerts went out for only one of them.
Both EF-1 tornadoes had winds between 85 and 100 miles per hour and caused minimal damage. The National Weather Service confirmed a tornado in Browns Mills, Burlington County — fortunately, nobody was hurt. However, another tornado, which tore up a little more than half a mile in East Greenwich Township, Gloucester County, flew under the radar.
“Tornadoes can develop very quickly, especially these shorter-lived, weaker tornadoes,” said Sarah Johnson, the warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Mount Holly.
Johnson and her team closely monitor all sorts of data points to make informed decisions on issuing warnings. She said they just didn’t see the East Greenwich one coming, which sometimes happens with smaller tornadoes.
“We aim to get a tornado warning out with enough leave-time for people to take protective action, but we don’t always meet our goal,” she admitted.
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She said they will look deeper into how they missed one and work to always get it right.
There aren’t any geographic factors that make one location more susceptible to tornadoes, Johnson added. And with it being peak season right now, the risk for more exists, so she asks everyone to take severe thunderstorm warnings just as seriously as tornado warnings, because you never know what Mother Nature has in store.
“Severe thunderstorms, regardless if there’s a tornado or not, are dangerous,” Johnson said. “So you should take protective action with severe thunderstorm warnings. Take those just as seriously as tornado warnings.”
It’s been a busy year already, with 20 tornadoes in the National Weather Service’s Mount Holly coverage area so far, which includes New Jersey, southeastern Pennsylvania and northern Delmarva.
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