Rainfall Over Past Couple Weeks Has Slowed Down Dry Spell

A little over two weeks ago, I posted an article in the GWC and Hurricaneville blog about much needed soaking rains coming to New Jersey and the Mid-Atlantic. While those rains weren’t as significant as originally expected, it began two week period of beneficial rains that have helped to ease the drought concerns in New Jersey.

Since the very beginning of May, there has been 1.83 inches of rainfall here at GWC in South Plainfield. Prior to that, there had only been 0.86 inches of rain for the month of April at GWC, and 9.65 inches for the year. Now, the total rainfall for the year is at 11.48 inches. Although the recent rains were part of a gloomy and chilly weather pattern over the last 14 days, they proved to be very helpful.

A lot of this had to do with the fact that there had been a blocking pattern set up over much of the country. Over the last two weeks of April, there was a lot of nice weather with plenty of sun, and warmer temperatures across the Garden State and the rest of the Mid-Atlantic. Meanwhile, further west in the Plains, there were days and days of torrential rainfall in places such as Houston while further north near Dallas, there was severe weather in the form of tornadoes and hail.

The block shifted east eventually, but the weather wasn’t as severe. A week or so ago, there was nothing but clouds with some occasional light to moderate rainfall. There wasn’t any significant rainfall of over an inch, but one of the days last week, there was a decent rain of approximately two thirds of an inch. Now, these kind of blocking patterns are not unusual for this time of year, which is why Springtime is always a period of a variety of weather.

Some days will either give you a feeling that Spring has finally sprung, or summer is around the corner. Other days will make you ask yourself are we in May, or in the end of March or early April. Spring is a lot like fall in that it is a transitional season. They only difference is that Spring is on the way up from winter to summer while Fall is on the way down from summer to winter. Both seasons always have a great deal of variation in weather.