Torrential Rains Return On Monday Afternoon In New Jersey

Just when you thought it was all over, the tropical rains that set records on Sunday here in the Garden State as well as portions of New York returned on Monday afternoon.  The skies had been mostly cloudy all day until the mid-afternoon when the sun came out for a bit.

Apparently the sun was the spark that the abundant moisture in the region needed to set off another round of rainfall.  Skies darkened, thickened, and lowered.  When I went on my lunch break, I stepped outside the office building where I work in the Raritan Center section of Edison, and moments later, the rains began falling again in earnest.

Looking at the latest rainfall data from the GWC weather station in South Plainfield, we had another 0.58 inches of rainfall so far on Monday.  Checking out the latest doppler radar, there is more rain and thunderstorm activity lurking off to the west, especially in the hard hit areas of Northwestern New Jersey.

Returning to yesterday’s rain, there was 4.15 inches of rain in South Plainfield for the day on Sunday.  In nearby Carteret, there was 6.19 inches of rain.  Down in South Jersey, parts of Salem County received up to 10 inches of rainfall.  J.F. Kennedy International Airport received 7.8 inches of rain while Islip on Long Island collected five inches of rainfall.

The rain is expected to linger around the region into Wednesday as a vast area of low pressure pinwheels around the Northeast.  Heavy rains have been reported farther north into Connecticut and Upstate New York as well.  Since September of 2010, the Central Jersey and New York City Metropolitan area has seen its share of wild weather.

Last September, there were the severe storms that produced tornadoes in Brooklyn and Staten Island as well as strong winds in Central Jersey.  Then, in December, we had the day after Christmas Blizzard, which kicked off a ferocious winter.  In the spring, there was the runoff from all of the snow and heavy rains that produced widespread flooding throughout the Garden State, and then there was the blazing heat and high humidity that characterized much of the Summer of 2011.