Parts Of New Jersey Could See Encore Of Thursday Night’s Severe Weather

Ready for another round of strong to severe thunderstorms? Believe it or not, more severe weather is possible again on Friday night around the Garden State. Skies have been variably cloudy and conditions have been unsettled all day today. In addition, there is still a great deal of humidity in the area.

Temperatures are not as hot as they were yesterday in Northwestern Middlesex County. The mercury only climbed to the upper 80s in South Plainfield, and the dew point was a bit lower to make the heat index feel like it was in the mid 90s outside. However, conditions are still uncomfortable with the peak dew point reaching 75 degrees.

The National Weather Service in Mount Holly has given a 30 to 40 percent chance of thunderstorms developing late this afternoon into the evening. Strong to severe thunderstorms already have been rumbling through Central and Eastern Pennsylvania. While the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma has not issued any watches for the region yet, the NWS indicates that storms containing gusty winds and heavy rains are possible tonight.

Much of the real hot weather stayed off to the south and west on Friday. An excessive heat warning remains in effect for the Philadelphia metro area including the New Jersey capital of Trenton. A Heat Advisory remained in effect for much of South Jersey including Atlantic City. It was quite a storm on Thursday night.

The severe weather here in Northwestern Middlesex County was the third round of storms during the day on Thursday. There was a brief thundershower in the early morning followed by a stronger storm that brought a downpour by late morning. The rainfall in the morning set the stage for the severe weather in the afternoon creating a great deal of moisture and instability for the sun to play with when it came out in the early afternoon.

Temperatures that were in the low to mid 70s at mid-morning climbed into the low 90s by the afternoon. Dew points went up from 69 in the morning to 77 by the late afternoon. The combination of the increased heat and humidity made it feel like 104 degrees outside in South Plainfield. Strong thunderstorms fed off of the heat and humidity as they began their jaunt from Eastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania during the mid-afternoon.

Moving at a rate of 50 miles per hour, these storms had the capability of producing hail that was two inches in diameter and 80 mile per hour winds along with dangerous cloud to ground lightning. In some instances, the storms spun off tornadoes. Elmira, New York had people from the National Weather Service office in Binghamton investigating the area for the possibility of tornadoes. A Tornado Watch was issued for Northeastern Pennsylvania by late afternoon.

The hardest hit areas in Jersey from this derecho like system were in Hunterdon, Somerset, Middlesex, and Monmouth County. Doppler radar detected a bow echo like feature pushing through the southern part of Middlesex County into interior Monmouth County near Freehold. Some 20,000 people were left without power in the wake of the storms and six people were injured according to an article written in Friday’s Star-Ledger.

According to the Storm Prediction Center, there were reports of 3 tornadoes, 419 of straight line winds, and 38 of hail from the severe weather on Thursday. Two of those three reports of twisters came from Elmira, New York. Three reports of hail came from Pennsylvania while one came from New York. Ten reports of high winds came from New Jersey including one from Plainfield for downed wires on Park Avenue, and then another from Edison for downed trees. Three people were injured in Rockaway Township in Morris County when a downed tree fell on a house there.

Hot, humid, and unsettled weather is expected through the weekend with temperatures reaching the mid to upper 80s with a chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon and evening from Saturday to Tuesday.