Afternoon Clouds Help Stabilize Atmosphere Over Northwest Middlesex County

Following two days of 80 plus degree weather, a cold front slowly pushed in from the west, but strong to severe storms stayed far to the south of GWC and the rest of the Northwest Middlesex County area.  Cloudiness that developed during the mid-afternoon kept temperatures down and stabilized the atmosphere just enough to prevent severe weather from occurring.  The only effect was some light rain and drizzle that came in around dinner time.

Further south, Garden State counties such as Mercer, Burlington, Monmouth, and Ocean took a much harder hit.  Storms that had fired up in Central Pennsylvania, held up through the eastern portion of the Keystone state as they brought gusty winds up to 60 miles per hour to places such as Reading, Kutztown, West Chester, Phoenixville, and Philadelphia metro before pushing into New Jersey.  Prior to that, temperatures were as high as 88 degrees in Toms River as supposed to 84 in South Plainfield on Tuesday afternoon.

Up to the north, near Pennsylvania towns such as Allentown and Scranton had a flare up of storms, but by the time they were pushing into West Jersey, they had been reduced to mere showers, and were breaking up.  Despite the dissipation, some afternoon and evening events were cancelled including the Championship Game of the Greater Middlesex Conference Baseball Tournament between St. Joseph’s and South Plainfield at TD Bank Ballpark in Bridgewater, which was postponed to Wednesday night.  Clouds lingered into Wednesday across much of Central Jersey.

Meanwhile, rain continued into Wednesday for extreme South Jersey with showers and storms hovering over towns such as Vineland, Millville, and Cape May.  Nice weather did return on Thursday with more sunshine, but temperatures remained cooler than normal with highs only getting up into the mid 60s.  GWC had a high of 65 degrees as of 1:29 PM on Thursday afternoon.  Temperatures will be warmer on Friday, but with a 30 percent chance of afternoon thunderstorms.