More Thunderstorms Expected Tomorrow

Discussion: This article is a bummer to write as I had plans to play golf with my buddies tomorrow. But here we are. As I’ve been covering in the weekly and weekend outlooks, the entire Mid-Atlantic US – and most of the E US, are under a sea of lower geopotential heights. Upper-low after upper-low with an overall condensed and lower atmosphere. This setup is very conducive for producing precipitation and thunderstorms especially in the warmer months. Water vapor has less altitude to rise to condense into water droplets, release latent heat, and form thunderstorms. This renders our lower atmosphere more sensitive to any routine lifting mechanism (meso front, sea breeze front, vertical sheer roll, a surface low, etc.) with regard to producing rain and storms. This setup should stay around for at least 10 more days and could finally deliver some much-needed rain to the region despite our hopes and dreams for outdoor activities. So for the long-range heads up, we’re looking at a wetter pattern beginning this weekend. It will not rain that entire period. Instead, it looks like a few hits from synoptic systems a few days apart. One of the hits could come from tropical cyclone remnants tracking up the coast from the SE US area. We have some time to figure it out.

As a more immediate expectation, we have a surface low expected to form over Delmarva/SNJ sometime Friday morning before tracking up the NJ coast Friday afternoon. At the very least this should bring periods of moderate, possibly heavy, rainfall to most of New Jersey between late-morning and early-evening hours of tomorrow (Friday). Flash flooding is a possibility for areas of poor drainage and dry run-off environments. Thunderstorms, however, are also very possible giving the proximity and lifting mechanism of the surface low. This increases the chances for areas of higher wind gusts (locally to the storm areas) and also hail (given the colder upper-levels now closer to the surface with the lower heights).

What we don’t have in tomorrow’s setup is a lot of diurnal instability. There will be a lot of clouds around which will prevent the sun from heating the surface under the colder air aloft. But we do have adequate wind sheer and lifting, With that said, I do not expect frequent lightning. Some but not frequent. Shear storms are more of an embedded boomer type event within heavy rainfall rather than a frequent light show that everyone sees well in advance of the approaching thunder cell(s). SNJ seems a little more favored for thunderstorm dynamics than NNJ. So my gut feel is moderate-to-heavy rainfall for the entire state with a little more boomer action happening in SNJ than NNJ. The action should approach WNJ by noon tomorrow (Friday) and clear ENJ by 8pm. Saturday and Sunday look much drier but could feature more clouds than sun. Sunday looks the driest. I will cover more in the weekend outlook tomorrow.

In English: Expect rain and thunderstorms to push through New Jersey tomorrow (Friday) afternoon-evening. Should approach WNJ around noon and clear ENJ by 8pm. Moderate-to-heavy rainfall with light-to-moderate winds is the highest confidence forecast. A lesser, but good, probability of thunderstorms exists with the ability to produce damaging wind gusts and hail. Should clear offshore by Friday night with maybe some remnant showers Saturday morning/afternoon. Saturday evening through all of Sunday (Father’s Day) then looks dry. Full weekend outlook tomorrow. For now, have a plan for rain/storms tomorrow afternoon-evening. Be safe! JC

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Jonathan Carr

Jonathan Carr (JC) is the founder and sole operator of Weather NJ, New Jersey’s largest independent weather reporting agency. Since 2010, Jonathan has provided weather safety and forecasting services for New Jersey and immediate surrounding areas through the web and social media. Originally branded as Severe NJ Weather (before 2014), Weather NJ is proud to bring you accurate and responsible discussions ahead of high-stakes weather scenarios that impact the garden state. All Weather. All New Jersey.™