Heat and Humidity Set To Return This Week As Well As Severe Weather

On Thursday afternoon, I got caught in a torrential downpour at Monument Park in downtown South Plainfield. You saw that in both the time lapse video and storm footage that I posted here in the blog. The videos only captured one round of the storms that pushed through town that day. There were three waves of showers and storms that moved through on Thursday. Total rainfall amount was just under an inch. The heaviest rain came during the afternoon storm that I captured on camera.

These storms were part of a storm system that moved through first from the south and then from the west. While the storms produced heavy rain and a Flood Advisory in parts of New Jersey, it did manage to usher in some changes to the weather. Prior to the arrival of the storms on Thursday, the heat and humidity had been on the increase. Temperatures rose into the upper 80s to near 90 on both Tuesday and Wednesday. Dew points climbed up into the low 70s as well to produce heat index values in the low 90s. It was perhaps the warmest weather so far in the month of August around the Garden State.

As a matter of fact, the last 90 degree day this summer in South Plainfield was on July 20th before severe storms rolled through the area. August 2013 has been the coolest month of August in three years. Following the passage of the cold front on the tail end of our storm system, temperatures and humidity levels dropped to more comfortable values for the weekend. Over the past three days, temperatures ranged from 79 to 82 degrees with minimum dew points ranging from 51 to 54 degrees. Skies were sunny with plenty of blue skies, and very little in the way of clouds. The only cloudiness was in the form of high cirrus clouds.

The heat and humidity will be creeping back into our weather picture as we start the new week. A persistent heat wave has built up in the midsection of the United States, and that will be moving east toward our region. As a result, temperatures will be rising into the mid to upper 80s starting on Monday and throughout the balance of the week. The periphery of the ridge of high pressure in the Midwest will be positioned just right for storms to come barreling through from the Great Lakes beginning on Monday night and lasting through Wednesday. Some of these storms could be severe.

Looking ahead to the unofficial end of summer, the Labor Day Weekend, the long range forecasts are indicating the heat and humidity to continue, and we could be looking at 90 degree weather for the holiday.