A second tornado may have touched down in South Jersey, and a twister was confirmed in southern Delaware

The National Weather Service said Saturday it was investigating the possibility that a second tornado touched down in South Jersey during Friday’s severe-storm outbreak.

A survey team was examining storm damage at a site in the Franklintown, Gloucester County area, said Sarah Johnson, warning coordination meteorologist at the weather service office in Mount Holly.

A tornado did land in Collings Lakes in Atlantic County at 12:52 p.m. on Friday, a weather service team confirmed. The agency also verified a twister in Sussex County, Delaware, but no details were immediately available.

The Atlantic County tornado was rated a minimal EF0 on the Enhanced Fujita scale, derived from research by the late Theodore Fujita based on damage analyses.

The weather service said its peak winds were 65 to 75 mph. It survived for only a minute, taking down large branches and tearing sheeting off a roof along its 25-yard path.

No injuries were reported as a result of the tornado or the other storms, some of which generated flooding downpours.

Determining whether winds spin or howl in a straight line is more than an exercise in satisfying curiosity, said Johnson.

Tornado warnings usually are based on radar evidence, and it’s important to match that with ground truth.

The weather service has to maintain a tornado database that is used by researchers and by insurers investigating claims.

Verifications also are important for in-house scorekeeping, matching forecasts against “what actually happened,” she said.

“We have to reach certain goals.”