Over a dozen tornadoes touched down in New Jersey in 2021.
That’s an impressive and a scary number. After all, over the last seven decades, the state averages only 2 tornadoes a year.
No, South Jersey is not the new tornado alley., and thankfully should never lay claim to that title. That notorious distinction is bestowed upon areas from Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas east into the Mississippi Valley. So don’t expect a torrent of storm chasers to be patrolling the Black Horse Pike or Garden State Parkway anytime soon. Likewise, I don’t expect tornado sirens to go up in every shore and mainland community either.
But over the last few years, there’s certainly been an uptick in severe weather outbreaks across the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. Only three years since 1950 have seen double digit tornado touchdowns in the Garden State, and two of those years are 2019 (10 tornadoes) and 2021 (13 tornadoes). The only other year, 1989, is the current record holder, when 17 tornadoes were confirmed to have struck the state..
So is this a blip that will go away, or the start of a trend that will likely continue? Of course, there’s no definitive answer, as only time will tell. There have been similar blips in the past, like 1987 through 1990, which faded away after a 4-year stretch when we averaged 10 per season.
But our climate is changing, and warmer and more humid trends are undeniable over the last decade or two. Usually, heat and humidity are directly correlated with severe weather outbreaks, as higher heat and humidity levels usually spawn more frequent and more intense severe weather outbreaks. So climate change by itself would suggest that a gradual uptick in tornadoes would be a reasonable expectation over the coming decades.
Further, tropical activity is up in the Atlantic Ocean, as previous columns have addressed. We’ve had six consecutive seasons of above average activity in the Atlantic, and this one is predicted to be the seventh. Landfalling tropical storms and hurricanes, as well as their eventual remnants, are notorious for spinning up tornadoes as they track over land. So if there are more hurricanes each year, the active tropical season can lead to higher tornado numbers each year as well. Over the last few years, Isaias, Fred, and Ida are all tropical systems that have all spawned tornadoes over New Jersey.
There’s also some studies that reflect that our aforementioned tornado alley, which traditionally has lied across the Southern Plains from Texas to Oklahoma to Kansas, is also shifting east just a bit, closer to the lower and mid-Mississippi Valley. It’s not conclusive, and even if it was, that’s still of course far away from our backyards here in South Jersey. But it is still significant enough that if true, can create an uptick farther east along the East Coast as well.
Tornadoes, perhaps even more than hurricanes, are headline and attention grabbing vortexes, and for good reason. While only on the ground for a short time and over a localized area, they can be devastating and destructive, like the EF3 Mullica Hill tornado in Gloucester County last year, one of the strongest ever to hit the state.
But whether it’s 2 or 12 per year, tornadoes are still rare in New Jersey. The last tornado to touch down in Atlantic County was back in July of 2001, when a waterspout over Great Egg Harbor Bay moved ashore in Somers Point and became a tornado.
Cape May and Ocean counties have seen more recent examples of twisters, due to landfalling or remnant tropical systems. In Cape May County, both Woodbine and Marmora have seen twisters over the last few years. Gloucester, Camden, Burlington, and Mercer counties have been especially tornado-prone of late.
All things considered, the chance that any one of us will see a tornado in South Jersey is still very small. But chances for being under tornado watches or even tornado warnings may be a little higher going forward. And if our future is warmer and stickier with more tropical activity, the average number of tornadoes may tick up from 2 to 3 or 4 in the decades ahead.
Still hardly enough for those storm chasers to relocate from Oklahoma to South Jersey.
Meteorologist Dan Skeldon has a degree in meteorology from Cornell University. He has forecasted the weather in South Jersey for the last 18 years, first on the former television station NBC40 and then on Longport Media radio. Dan has earned the American Meteorological Society Seal of Approval for Broadcast Meteorologists, and now does television broadcasts on WFMZ-TV in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley.
