Bonnie Puts a Damper on Holiday Weekend Finale

2nd Named Storm of the 2016 Season Washes Away Beach Day for Many

The official start of the 2016 Atlantic Hurricane Season is still a couple of days away, and already we have two named storms on the board. Alex formed in January as a rare out of season storm, and over the Memorial Day holiday weekend, Bonnie emerged off the Southeastern coast of the United States as the second storm of the season.

Bonnie became a depression on Friday afternoon some 435 miles to the Southeast of Charleston, South Carolina. The emergence came after almost a full work week of speculation that something would emerge in the Western Atlantic. A disturbance spun up in the Bahamas earlier in the week, and the models were indicating that it would eventually come ashore as a tropical cyclone of some kind.

Despite the less than optimal conditions that are commonplace this time of year, the depression battled its way to become Tropical Storm Bonnie within 24 hours on late Saturday afternoon. Within six hours, Bonnie strengthened a bit more to have maximum sustained winds of 45 miles per hour (mph). The storm peaked at that point, and weakened back to a depression just before landfall at 8:45 AM EDT on Sunday morning.

The downgraded system came ashore to the east of Charleston, South Carolina in the Isle of Palms. Winds at that time were 35 mph with gusts up to 40 mph while the barometric pressure rose to 1009 millibars or 29.80 inches of Hg. Although it weakened, the depression still packed a wallop with torrential rains for much of South Carolina, and then it moved up toward the north and spread its rains into North Carolina and Virginia.

As the storm moved northward, it created instability throughout much of the Mid-Atlantic where potent showers and thunderstorms dumped heavy rains on places such as Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. At Greg’s Weather Center in South Plainfield, New Jersey, there was 0.82 inches of rain during the overnight hours of Memorial Day. Much of the precipitation from Bonnie still laid to the south of GWC.

The remnants of Tropical Storm Bonnie is currently joining forces with a cold front pushing in from the west. Currently the front is producing heavy showers and thunderstorms in portions of Northeastern Pennsylvania and Northwestern New Jersey. Bands of showers lay to the south and east over coastal and Southern New Jersey thanks to the Northeast track of what’s left of Bonnie. All of this created unstable conditions throughout the holiday, and opened the possibility for severe weather here in the Garden State.

Earlier in the day on Monday, the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma put portions of the Northeast under a marginal risk for severe weather. The area included a slice of Northwestern New Jersey. Things should clear out for the start of the work week with cooler temperatures after a four day heat wave dominated the holiday weekend in New Jersey.