Mother Nature Still Spares Jersey As Two Storm Systems Fail To Combine

For the second time in a week, cities and towns across New Jersey received more rain.  After enjoying a good stretch of weather for the previous four days, residents in the Garden State were treated to another inch or so of rain.  Two low pressure systems joined forces to make this happen, but failed to fully come together as forecast, which helped keep rainfall totals from reaching their potential.

Here in Northwestern Middlesex County, there was 0.89 inches of rain on Wednesday.  Much of it came over a period of 18.5 hours starting just before 5:30 AM.  Heaviest rainfall occurred during the morning and in the evening while the afternoon saw only moderate precipitation.  Over the past week, there has been 1.56 inches of rain here in South Plainfield, and 2.76 inches so far in October.  Since the new weather station was installed back in mid-June, we’ve had 29.03 inches of rain.

Of that four month total, 22.77 has fallen since August 1st.  Things could have been much worse though.  Similar to the situation on Friday, more rain was expected, but never came to fruition.  The outlook was calling for up to 3 inches of rain around the area along with winds up to 40 miles per hour.  Fortunately, it didn’t come to pass.  A storm system from the Midwest was supposed to merge with a subtropical system in the Northeastern Gulf.

The two storms failed to come together because while the low in the Midwest created an alleyway for the low in the Gulf to come up to the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic United States, the Gulf low moved at an angle that kept the bulk of its precipitation away from Jersey as well as the rest of the New York City Metropolitan area.  The Midwest low also stayed far to the west.  The two systems diverged rather than coming together.

Even though the two storms did not meet, each did bring some sort of weather to our area.  The Gulf low brought much of the rain on Wednesday while the Midwest low brought cloudiness and gusty winds on Thursday.  The sun did manage to peek out during the day, especially in the morning and early afternoon.  In the wake of these two storms, Central Jersey as well as the rest of the Northeast will be seeing a drop in temperatures to fall like levels.