Northwestern Middlesex County Spared From Another Round Of Torrential Rain

Early in the day on Sunday, the forecasts were painting a picture of heavy rains falling again throughout the Garden State.  By mid-morning, the Storm Prediction Center was calling for a slight risk of severe weather in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.  The predictions would all come to fruition by the late afternoon and early evening.

Going out for a walk on a couple occasions during the day at work in Raritan Center, I did get a good sense of the changing conditions outside.  The first walk I took around noon, and noticed that the winds had picked up, and the skies were beginning to look more threatening.  Once back inside, I checked the radar from Fort Dix in Wrightsville, New Jersey, and noticed thunderstorms were beginning to develop around the Philadelphia area as well as to the north in Southeastern New York and Western Connecticut.

After continuing to monitor the radar for a few hours, I went out again for a walk at about four o’clock while on my lunch break.  The sun was out a bit, but was obscured by clouds trying to fill in.  Skies were much darker to the south. There were rumbles of thunder in the distance, and some raindrops fell, but the heavier rain again held off.  However, around 5:30 PM, the storms began to move in over Northwestern New Jersey, and pushed eastward.

Within the hour, the skies grew dark as if nightfall was beginning an hour earlier.  Daylight hours are getting shorter, but the sun still doesn’t set until about 7:50 PM EDT.  Over the next hour, another round of torrential rains would take place.  There were some rumbles of thunder, but nothing in the form of damaging hail, high winds, and lightning.  The situation would change though as the power went out in the office just as I was getting ready to leave for the night.

After I left work, I took a drive over to Middlesex County College, and took video footage of the heavy rain, thunder, and lightning from the storms passing through.  The rain finally seemed to start letting up just after 8:30 PM, but as I was driving home, one final downpour was unleashed as I headed on to Route 1 North in Edison.  Rainfall would ultimately subside, and when I got home, I discovered that there was only 0.64 inches of rain here in South Plainfield.  While it was the third largest rainfall this week, it was far less than I thought it would be.

Looking at the latest storm reports courtesy of the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, there were a total of 237 reports including 192 reports of high winds and 45 of hail.  Of those reports, six were in the Garden State with all of them indicating wind damage or downed trees.  Rainfall amounts ranged from 0.11 inches in Newark as of 8:15 PM to over two inches in Belmar.  Nearby Somerville Airport had 1.01 inches of rain.  Northeast Philadelphia received just over two inches while McGuire Air Force Base tallied 1.25 inches.

There could be some lingering showers and downpours until early Monday morning before conditions begin to clear out.  Nice weather is on tap for much of the week until Thursday when severe weather could return.  We are watching the track of Tropical Storm Irene, which is close to becoming the season’s first hurricane in the Atlantic, and it could impact somewhere along the East Coast later this week.