Powerful Cold Front To Usher In Early Start To Fall

The calendar says that the first day of fall is not for another nine days.  However, mother nature is working on a much different schedule.  After a very hot summer throughout much of the United States, and the wettest month ever in many parts of the Eastern U.S., the torrid summer weather of 2011 may come to an abrupt end.

Today, Hurricaneville and Greg’s Weather Center were at several beaches in the Manasquan Inlet section of the Jersey Shore including Belmar, Avon by the Sea, Spring Lake, and Sea Girt.  It was a gorgeous late summer day to be outside.  A professional surfer competition was taking place at Belmar, but many others made it out to the coast to see what may up ending to be the last real summer day until May.

Skies were blue and sunny, and temperatures climbed into the mid to upper 80s here in the Garden State.  The mercury reached a high of 88 degrees in Newark.  Meanwhile, in South Plainfield, the temperature topped out at 85 degrees.  The heat index peaked at 90.5 here in Northwestern Middlesex County.  However, by late afternoon, changes were beginning to pop up throughout the Mid-Atlantic region.  Isolated thunderstorms were developing in Putnam County, New York while stronger storms lurked off to the Southwest in South Central Pennsylvania.

It is a harbinger of things to come.  A powerful low pressure system with a strong cold front will be diving into the region by the middle of the morning on Thursday.  The front is a dividing line between a vast temperature gradient.  In the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, temperatures were in the upper 80s.  Meanwhile, in the upper Midwest, the mercury was struggling to get into the 60s.  The storm system is feeding off this temperature contrast, and creating a powerful line of storms.

A Hazardous Weather Outlook has already been issued for much of the Garden State with isolated thunderstorms bringing brief heavy rain, winds gusting to 45 miles per hour, and possible hail.  The threat will become more widespread on Thursday morning with winds gusting between 30 and 45 miles per hour from 2:00 PM to 8:00 PM on Thursday.