Good evening everyone. Sorry that I’ve been not been posting articles to the blog, but I had a busy week last week with appointments. I was also working on a series of time lapse videos of weather conditions here in South Plainfield over the past couple weeks. I do have some time now to talk about the weather.

As one of my doctor said today, we have a weather event. A significant one at that. We had a frontal boundary pushing into the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, and it was joined at the hip with a vigorous upper level trough that is providing the energy to create a powerful coastal storm. Right now, it is bringing tremendous rains to portions of the Tri-State area. However, most of it is occurring over Long Island and Upstate New York. Rainfall amounts in portions of Westchester County are just under an inch. Amounts across Long Island were in the range of three quarters of an inch. Meanwhile, along the Jersey Shore, a little more than a half of an inch has fallen.

In Northwestern Middlesex County, there has only been 0.15 inches of rainfall, but that is likely not accurate because I had some trouble with my rain gauge, which was clogged by some debris. One of the nice things about this storm is the fact that it is a fast moving system. The rain that is currently falling in Central Jersey now is expected to taper off to showers during the overnight. However, rain will linger in the form of scattered showers during the day on Friday. The big story though over the next 24 to 36 hours will be the wind. Right now, the pressure in South Plainfield (10:19 PM EDT) has fallen to 29.54 inches, or 1000 millibars, and it is still falling. So, we have a strong low pressure system in the region.

As the storm lifts out, high pressure will start to try to move in. The difference in pressure between our nor’easter, and the high, a pressure gradient, will cause strong winds to develop. Winds are expected to be sustained between 20 and 30 miles per hour with gusts in upwards of 45 to 50 miles per hour. A Wind Advisory is in effect for portions of the area from Friday morning until Saturday night. This storm system is so powerful that a Winter Storm Watch is in effect for elevations above 2,000 in portions of New York and New England including the Adirondacks, Northeast Catskills, Helderbergs, Southern Green Mountains, and Northern Berkshires.

It has been a very stormy period for nearly the past month. It all started with severe weather on the afternoon of September 16th. It was repeated on September 22nd with another round of strong to severe thunderstorms. There was a nor’easter that brought an abundance of tropical moisture from the remnants of Tropical Storm Nicole on September 30th and October 1st. Finally, there was another round of strong thunderstorms that moved through Central Jersey on the evening of October 11th. We also had strong storms rolled through Jersey on the evening of September 13th.

Some things to expect from this storm would be blown leaves clogging drainage areas, ponding of water, flooding, downed tree limbs and power lines. This storm is going to make things interesting for many of the football games on tap around Middlesex County on Friday night and Saturday afternoon.