Fatality confirmed in Delaware tornado, one of 6 twisters that hit the Philly area over the weekend

The National Weather Service continued its busy assessment of damage Monday from the weekend’s tornado outbreak, confirming a sixth twister struck Lower Bucks County April 1 like a joke from Mother Nature gone awry as a warm, sunny evening suddenly turned threatening and dark, sending thousands of residents to their basements.

On Monday evening, the National Weather Service confirmed there was one death related to a tornado that reached 140 mph in the Bridgeville-Ellendale area of Delaware around 6 p.m. Saturday. Winds were forceful enough to have blown six parked semitrailers along a driveway, and a two-story house collapsed after it slid off its foundation. Debris was recorded to have flown hundreds of yards due to the funnel cloud.

No further information was immediately available about the fatality. The ferocious tornado carved a 14.3 mile path. The only other tornado-related fatality in Delaware occurred in 1983, according to the weather service. The strongest tornado on record in Delaware struck on April 28, 1961, in New Castle.

But that was the first of a series of tornados that landed throughout the region on Saturday.

Investigators said the Bucks tornado emerged from a line of strong storms that moved through the county, snapping and uprooting trees. The cyclone emerged about 6:46 p.m. in Wrightstown Township near Swamp , continuing to tear down trees on the Bucks County Community College campus.

It blew off a roof facade of a strip mall in Newtown, with a continuous path of damage that ended near Newtown Cemetery.

Investigators had no further information on that tornado on Monday.

But another tornado roughed up multiple Burlington County towns rimming the Delaware River around the same time, packing 100 mph winds in a continuous path of destruction six miles long and 600 yards wide, while toppling hundreds of trees, downing power lines, and ripping roof shingles off homes.

The National Weather Service released the strength and path of that tornado, one of four others Saturday night that touched down from Delaware to the Shore, though no injuries were reported.

“I have never heard a wind like that, ever,” recalled Kristin Parry, of Riverton Road in Cinnaminson. “It was followed by a big boom, like a shotgun, and a loud snapping. It all happened so fast.”

Two large pine trees toppled on her front lawn, luckily away from the house, but tearing down power lines and contributing to power outages that left the area dark.

» READ MORE: 5 tornadoes confirmed in the area: ‘Never heard a wind like that’

The tornado registered as an EF1 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, meaning winds were in the range of 86 to 110 mph as it tore through Cinnaminson, Delran, and Moorestown. But high winds also ripped through Palmyra and Riverton. One is the lowest rating on the scale, which goes to five for tornadoes with winds over 200 mph.

That tornado and the others were the result of a strong line of thunderstorms that moved through western Burlington County about 7 p.m. Saturday.

The tornado touched down in Cinnaminson near Riverton Road and Woodside Lane, blew through neighboring Delran, and chugged through parts of Moorestown before it was over.

Mature trees throughout the communities were snapped like twigs and uprooted. The strongest wind damage occurred near Wynwood Drive and Locust Lane, where most of one roof of a single-family home was ripped off.

The tornado continued across U.S. Route 130, eventually growing to its greatest width of 634 yards as it crossed Haines Mill Road in Delran. It moved into Moorestown through the mostly wooded Esther Yanai Preserve but continued on causing damage to roof shingles to a home on Augusta Drive and snapping a utility pole on Centeron Road.

But damage continued in Palmyra and Riverton from an associated downburst that had peak winds of 90 to 100 mph.

The National Weather Service assessed other tornadoes that touched down in other parts of New Jersey, including Jackson, Ocean County, and Howell Township and Sea Girt in Monmouth County. A tornado was confirmed near Bridgeville, Del.

The tornado in Jackson reached 130 mph winds over a 2.1-mile path that was 200 yards wide about 7:24 p.m. Saturday. It plowed east, downing power lines, demolishing fences, flipping Dumpsters, and crushing small buildings. As it strengthened, it struck a new warehouse development, causing a metal roofing system to collapse. Dozens of trees were uprooted.