Tornado Hit North Jersey, NWS Confirms

MORRIS COUNTY, NJ — The National Weather Service has confirmed that a tornado did damage a high school in New Jersey on Tuesday.

Lee Robertson, a meteorologist with the NWS, confirmed to Patch that a tornado did touch down in Stanhope. More information, like the wind speed and the width of the tornado, will be released later on Wednesday.

In all, it took less than an hour for the severe thunderstorm and tornado to rip through the northern part of New Jersey Tuesday night, damaging Lenape Valley High School, sending trees onto cars, and leaving thousands without power the next morning.

There was a track banquet at Lenape Valley when the tornado hit, Lenape Valley superintendent Paul Dirupo told Patch. No one inside the school was injured, and, after they waited out the storm in the gym, everyone was given the O.K. from OEM officials to leae.

Four people were inside of a car in the school parking lot when a tree fell on it. They were able to get out of the car themselves and did not sustain any serious injuries.

The damage to the school was extensive: the baseball dugout was thrown about 20 feet, trees were uprooted, wires downed, and the entrance to the high school was damaged, NJ.com reported. It was closed on Wednesday.

Damage wasn't isolated to the high school. Downed trees and power lines mean about 1,500 of JCP&L's roughly 1,700 customers in Stanhope are without power as of 8 a.m. on Wednesday, 12 hours after the storm rolled through. There is currently no estimated time of restoration.

In Morris County, high wind speeds toppled trees across roads and onto cars and houses. It's not clear exactly how strong the winds were, but the damage is hard to miss.

Several roads in Roxbury and Washington Township were closed overnight, and a trained weather spotter reported a funnel cloud over Mendham last night. A houseboat overturned on Lake Hopatcong, in the Landing section of Roxbury.

Residents should brace for another round of storms Wednesday night. The National Weather Service is expecting severe thunderstorms across the region; North Jersey has an "enhanced" risk of storms, while the rest of the state has a slight risk of scattered severe storms. An inch or two of rain is expected, but some towns in northeastern New Jersey could get as much as 3 inches.

Read more: More Severe NJ Weather After Tornado, Storm Destruction

In the Tuesday storm, Colleen Imler told Patch a tree fell on her home on Waterloo Road about 8:30 p.m. About 30 seconds before they heard the tree crack, Imler, her husband, and their Labrador took cover in their basement. No one was injured, but Imler described it as the "scariest night of our lives.

Power outages in Morris County are limited Wednesday morning. Most towns have fewer than 15 outages; Washington Township is reporting 42 outages, and Roxbury Township has 135. No restoration time is available for any of the towns. (You can see the most up-to-date outage information here.)