Tornado Touches Down In Springfield, N.J. Amid Severe Weather
SPRINGFIELD, N.J. (CBSNewYork) - A tornado briefly touched down in Springfield during Wednesday's severe storms, the National Weather Service said.
National Weather Service has confirmed with Union County Emergency Management that a brief tornado touched down near Springfield Ave and Route 22 in Springfield, NJ. Radar estimated winds 70 mph with a rating of EF0.
— NWS New York NY (@NWSNewYorkNY) August 7, 2019
The National Weather Service says the EF0 tornado touched down at around 2:47 p.m.
On Milltown Road in Springfield Township, residents CBS2's Meg Baker spoke with say gusts of wind blew through town as the sky dumped buckets and toppled trees.
PHOTOS: Powerful Storm Brings Tornado To Springfield
"Lot of wind, lot of thunder. I heard the wind. It was really bad," said homeowner Melissa Scala. "I was crying. The police came, the fire department came. My daughter was OK, thank God. So it was a really scary incident, and this is the first time anything ever big happened."
An exit off Route 22 is closed due to a downed tree on top of a car on Springfield Road. Several trees were also down in the area.
Social media footage captured what looks like a funnel cloud above Union County. The Naitonal Weather Service said it got a lot of reports of strong winds, including some so strong as to flip a trampoline over, damage local business and leave streets with a mess of branches thrown about.
The storms were causing outages in our area.
As of 11 p.m.:
- There are approximately 266 outages in Union County
- 1,100 outages in Essex County
- 3,068 outages in Monmouth County
Check your airline before heading out for a flight. Delays at Newark Airport reached four hours Wednesday evening.