Morning Clouds and Fog Curtail Storms
Morning Overcast Spares Central Jersey from Friday’s Severe Weather
SOUTH PLAINFIELD, NJ – Last week was the wettest seven days at Greg’s Weather Center in a month and a half. Wednesday’s downpour brought the most one-day rainfall of the year so far. Almost two inches of rain fell with two-thirds of it coming in just a two hour span. Thursday provided somewhat of a brief reprieve. There was worry though about Friday morning with a Mesoscale Convective System heading in from the upper Midwest. Fortunately, morning clouds and fog curtailed those storms and spared Central Jersey from the wrath of Friday’s severe weather.
The unsettled pattern that lingered for the better part of four days from Tuesday to Friday, left Northwestern Middlesex County under the veil of clouds and fog long enough on Friday morning to keep the atmosphere from destabilizing too much. The storms were worse further south with strong winds, a gustnado, and a tornado for many in South Jersey. Meanwhile, at GWC, the storms brought just another dose of heavy rain with rumbles of thunder and an occasional flash of lightning.
| Date | Rainfall Total (in inches) | Max Rainfall Rate (inches/hour) |
| 5/13/2025 | 0.29 | 0.51 |
| 5/14/2025 | 1.86 | 4.14 |
| 5/15/2025 | 0.23 | 2.31 |
| 5/16/2025 | 0.56 | 2.44 |
Just Another Round of Rain with Some Rumbles of Thunder
After the MCS pushed through the Garden State on Friday afternoon, GWC received another 0.56 of an inch of rainfall. Friday ended up being the fourth straight day of measurable rainfall. The four days of rain produced 2.94 inches. It was an average of nearly three-quarters of an inch per day. The rainfall represented a little over 71 percent of the month’s rainfall to date. The peak rainfall rate occurred during the 3:00 PM hour on May 14th with 4.14 inches per hour.
Elsewhere around the North Jersey region, the rainfall amounts were comparable on Friday. Rain totals ranged from just under a quarter of an inch in Hudson County to two-thirds of an inch in Piscataway. The rainfall rates were anywhere from 0.05 of an inch per hour in Metuchen to 3.24 inches per hour in North Plainfield. GWC ranked in the top four in rainfall amounts and third in peak rainfall rate.
| Location | Rainfall Total (in inches) | Max Rainfall Rate (inches/hour) |
| Piscataway, NJ | 0.66 | 2.47 |
| New Brunswick, NJ | 0.61 | 1.03 |
| Middlesex, NJ | 0.60 | 2.30 |
| South Plainfield, NJ | 0.56 | 2.44 |
| Woodbridge, NJ | 0.54 | 1.51 |
| Wardlaw-Hartridge School – Edison, NJ | 0.52 | 2.29 |
| Watchung, NJ | 0.51 | 1.15 |
| Sayreville, NJ | 0.47 | 1.54 |
| Warren, NJ | 0.47 | 2.00 |
| Scotch Plains, NJ | 0.42 | 0.31 |
| Edison, NJ | 0.37 | 0.41 |
| North Plainfield | 0.37 | 3.24 |
| South Amboy, NJ | 0.35 | 0.47 |
| Perth Amboy, NJ | 0.26 | 0.29 |
| Metuchen, NJ | 0.25 | 0.05 |
| Kearny, NJ | 0.24 | 0.46 |
Storms Much Worse in South Jersey
Further south in the Garden State, the MCS worked with more atmospheric energy and generated more chaos as a result. Pushing in from Southeastern Pennsylvania, this portion of the storm complex was much more potent. According to NJ.com, a tornado touched down in Collings Lake in Atlantic County was an EF0 that traveled only about a half a mile with winds between 65 and 75 miles per hour. On Monday, the NWS upgraded the storm to an EF1 with 90 to 95 mph winds that trekked 8.6 miles.
In addition, the NWS office in Mount Holly, NJ dispatched a group of meteorologists to Franklinville in Gloucester County to investigate another severe weather report. What this group found was a gustnado that produced winds in upwards of 100 to 105 miles per hour. Those winds are equivalent to that of a Category Two Hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. The tornado in Atlantic County was the first of 2025 in New Jersey.
Garden State’s First Tornado of 2025
On average, there are two twisters per year in the Garden State. The most to occur in one year in New Jersey was 17 in 1989. The most tornadoes in one day across the Garden State was seven in November 1989 and more recently on April 1, 2023. The MCS produced over 185 reports of either damaging winds, hail, or tornadoes across the Mid-Atlantic states of Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
One of those reports included an occurrence of golf ball sized hail in the town of Avalon in Cape May County, NJ. There were 11 storm reports in all from South Jersey. Nine of those reports were of high winds in Gloucester and Atlantic County. The further south you traveled in the Mid-Atlantic, there more severe weather you encountered.
Fortunately, there was no wind damage or hail in Northwestern Middlesex County. Following the storms, the barometer continued to fall for the rest of the day on Friday into Saturday. The pressure finally bottomed out at 29.40 inches by late Saturday afternoon. A pressure gradient developed and produced gusty winds. The winds lingered into the new week with falling temperatures, but they were not as bad as those on Sunday, April 27th.