Up and Down Temperatures in Garden State over past week
The twists and turns that have been going on with the weather in not only New Jersey, but also the rest of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic this past week have been like that of a roller coaster ride at Six Flags Great Adventure. Since the first winter storm of the New Year rolled through the region on January 2nd and 3rd, the temperatures in Central Jersey have dropped into the teens for highs on Saturday, rose back up into the mid 50s by early Monday morning, and then plummeted to single digits, and now they are rising back into the 50s by the weekend.
The low temperature of 1.3 degrees at GWC in South Plainfield on Saturday morning, January 4th, was the lowest temperature recorded since the installation of the new weather station in mid-June 2011. The low temperature on Tuesday morning was 4 degrees with a wind chill below zero at minus 3 degrees although the anenomenter on the GWC Wx Station is close to the ground, and didn’t receive the full effect of the wind. So, the wind chill could have even been lower. This station’s record low followed a near 52 degree drop in temperature from the high of 56 degrees on Monday morning. Temperatures had been on the rise on Saturday and Sunday after the record low on Saturday morning. As a result, the next storm that came in started out with freezing rain causing very slippery and dangerous conditions on roads that were still fairly snow covered thanks to the very cold weather.
Now the mercury is again on the rise. The high temperature on Thursday was 32 degrees with very little in the way of wind to deal with. The barometer climbed to 30.64 inches of Hg before slipping to 30.59 inches as of the time of this report. Temperatures are expected to drop into the low to mid 20s overnight tonight, and then climb into the low 40s for highs on Friday. The temperatures will continue to climb as we move into Saturday with a high of 59 expected in Northwestern Middlesex County. Another storm system is going to coincide with the rise in temperature, and we are looking at a similar scenario to Sunday’s weather late Thursday night into Friday morning. This storm system is forecast to begin at around midnight with some snow, which will change over to freezing rain by the morning commute, and then all rain by Friday afternoon.
It has been a cold and stormy pattern in New Jersey since around Thanksgiving. Strong low pressure systems have been followed by strong high pressure systems, which is not unusual. Last week, pressure levels ranged from 29.47 to 30.52 inches of Hg (Mercury). Surprisingly the high pressure reached was not the highest on record at GWC since mid-June 2011. Back on November 30, 2013, the barometer topped out to 30.73 inches of Hg. It was several days after a storm system had developed, which brought some wintry conditions for Thanksgiving here in the Garden State. It was a taste of things to come.
December saw five storms including four that brought snow over a span of two weeks. The turbulent weather pattern leveled off around a week before Christmas, and temperatures rebounded to the mid 50s and then the upper 60s on the weekend of December 21st and 22nd. The high temperature on Sunday morning, December 22nd at GWC was 69 degrees. By Christmas Day, the temperature had dropped to the mid 30s. Snow flurries fell on Christmas Eve, and more light snow occurred on the day after Christmas 2013. There were a couple more bouts with snow flurries in Central Jersey as we ended 2013. The cold and stormy pattern continued into the first week of 2014.