Plenty of Moisture Coming to the Garden State This Week

Sunday Night and Monday Afternoon’s Rain Are Only the Beginning for Jersey

With the tropical feel to the atmosphere over New Jersey for much of the last week, something had to give, and it has started to. On Sunday night, showers and storms developed over GWC in South Plainfield, and brought about 0.40 inches of rain. Skies remained cloudy throughout Monday morning and afternoon before another round of showers and storms pushed through much of Middlesex County as well as Union County and Northeastern Jersey before crushing Staten Island. Only about 0.12 inches of rain fell in the rain gauge at GWC, but more could be on the way.

Heavy rains are not only in the forecast for Monday night, but also for all of Tuesday and Thursday. Much of the nation will be in the grips of torrential rain, especially in places that don’t need it like Texas. There has been an abundance of moisture coming up from the Gulf of Mexico. The National Hurricane Center has been watching a promising disturbance in the Western Gulf, which has already brought plenty of rain to the Yucatan and Belize. This disturbance is expected to remain somewhat weak, but still develop into the Atlantic Basin’s second named storm of the year, Bill. Probability of that happening is about 90 percent over the next 2 to 5 days.

This tropical feature is expected to turn to the north and east after moving into coastal Texas, and provide a tremendous moisture feed to the rest of the country. The National Weather Service calls for a 60 percent chance of rain for South Plainfield on Monday night, a 50 percent chance for all of Tuesday, and a 30 percent chance on Thursday. Temperatures are expected to range from the upper 70s to upper 80s this week. The NWS in Mount Holly has issued a Hazardous Weather Outlook for Central Jersey, and is calling for locally heavy rainfall with these storms, and in some cases some gusty or damaging winds. Some areas could see between 2 to 4 inches.