Cooler Temperatures Come With Nothing But Blue Skies For Middlesex County

Last week, the mercury had flirted with 90 degrees for the 38th time since May 7th. Since then, the weather pattern has become cooler. Temperatures have been hovering in the mid to upper 70s for the most part. The only exception was on Sunday when temperatures ended up in the 60s as cloudy skies and some rain came through the area. Both Sunday and Monday brought about some of the first rain in almost three weeks. Each day there was 0.17 inches of rain. Another .01 inches fell early on Tuesday morning.

However, the big story has been the overall weather pattern this past week. Along with the cooler temperatures, there has been breezy conditions accompanied by clear blue skies and fair weather clouds. I happened to take a walk outside while at work each of the past several days, and couldn’t help but notice how blue the skies were. Hadn’t seen that in a while. The heat and humidity of summer can do that to you. Usually the hazy, hot, and humid weather traps pollutants, which causes the skies to have a more grey look to it.

September is normally one of the driest months of the year in New Jersey. The lack of rain combined with the comfortable temperatures and the sight of no crowded beaches, makes it very appealing to spend some time along the Jersey Shore. On top of all that, you don’t have to play to get on the beach in most cases. This past Sunday, we had the most heating degree days yet with 3.0. The mean temperature on Sunday was 62 degrees with a high of only 64.4 while the low was 59.5 degrees. We’re still getting cooling degree days though with 4.1 over the past week. We’ve had some wind gusts of at least 8 miles per hour in six out of the past seven days.

The mean temperature for the month continues to gradually decline. It is now down to 70.7 degrees with the mean high temperature up to 81.5 degrees while the mean low temperature down to 59.8 degrees. Days continue to get shorter here in New Jersey. This morning, the sunrise time was 6:37 AM and the sunset time was 7:08 PM. The forecast calls for another pleasant day here in Northwestern Middlesex County tomorrow, but the rain plans to return on Thursday, and may stick around into early Friday.