A Taste of Early June or Early September on Tap for This Weekend’s Games
SOUTH PLAINFIELD, NJ—Over the past week to 10 days, the weather has been, for the most part, comfortable, but also cloudy, foggy, and unsettled. However, the pattern is expected to change just in time for the Week 7 games starting on Thursday night, and continuing into Saturday. Temperatures will be going up into the mid to upper 70s on Thursday, and then into the upper 70s to low 80s on Friday and Saturday according to NJ.com.
Accu-Weather and the National Weather Service office in Mount Holly, New Jersey also indicated this last night and this morning. High pressure will be anchored along the Eastern Seaboard, which will help pull up warmer and more humid air from places such as the Ohio Valley. It is a classic summertime southwesterly flow of air that will be affecting Central Jersey over the next several days.
Over the previous few days, high temperatures at Greg’s Weather Center in South Plainfield, New Jersey have ranged from 64 degrees on Sunday to 72 degrees on Monday to 69 degrees on Tuesday while lows have stayed in the mid to upper 50s. The high temps have been about average for this time of year in the Garden State. There hasn’t been much of a diurnal range of temperature, i.e. difference between daytime high and nighttime low.
However, by the end of this week, and this weekend, temperatures will be about 15 degrees above normal for this time of year. There could actually be some records broken in places such as Atlantic City and Trenton. With those rising temperatures, comes greater chances for showers and thunderstorms, especially on Saturday when a cold front approaches the area.
On Tuesday night, Accu-Weather indicated a 60 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms for Saturday. This morning, the probability of showers and storms increased a bit more to 64 percent. The Weather Channel is indicating a mostly cloudy morning on Saturday with showers developing in the afternoon and early evening. TWC gives the chance of rain at 58 percent as of right now.
While Accu-Weather is a bit more bullish on the temperatures climbing up into the low 80s on Friday and Saturday, The Weather Channel is a bit more conservative with highs only getting into the upper 70s to around 80 during the next several days. Meanwhile, the National Weather Service Office in Mount Holly is forecasting highs between 79 and 81 degrees for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday with the 81 on Friday.
The NWS also indicates that there will be patchy fog on Thursday morning before becoming mostly sunny in the afternoon. Friday will probably be the best day with partly sunny skies and calm winds shifting to a light southwest breeze by evening. Rain could start getting into the picture though by early Saturday morning starting after 2:00 AM.
So for Thursday night’s game between St. Thomas Aquinas and Middlesex to take place at Middlesex’s Memorial Field at Mountain View Park, skies will be partly cloudy with temperatures around 71 degrees as per both Accu-Weather and The Weather Channel apps. Then, on Friday, when Big Central Gridiron heads out to North Brunswick, skies will be partly cloudy before becoming mostly cloudy with temperature at about 72 around game time.
On Saturday, the game between Delaware Valley and Hillside starting at 1:00 PM, the temperature at game time will be 79 degrees under partly cloudy skies with the chance of rain at 22 percent, but expect that to increase, especially in the second half as the front approaches from the west. Hopefully, the rain will hold off until after the game, which should be around 3:30 to 3:45 unless there’s overtime.
There has been a fierce storm system in the country’s mid-section for the early part of this week, and it has caused multiple days of severe weather there. According to the Storm Prediction Center, there were 58 total storm reports including 39 wind reports, 12 reports of hail, and 7 tornado sightings on Tuesday from as far north as Southwestern Nebraska to Northern Texas and Northeastern New Mexico.
On Monday, the severe weather was more or less focused in the area of Lake Michigan from Illinois to Indiana to Western Michigan. There were another 58 total storm reports including 49 wind reports, one report of hail, and 8 tornado sightings. This storm system will be gradually moving eastward across the country, and as of now, the SPC indicates a marginal risk for severe weather in the Ohio Valley on Friday.
As far as the tropics go, we are heading into the period of the secondary activity peak in the Atlantic. Currently, nothing much is happening in the Atlantic basin although, there is an area of disturbed weather near the Southeastern Bahamas. Fortunately, for now, this disturbance only has a 10 percent chance of development over the next 48 hours to 5 days according to the National Hurricane Center.
Meanwhile, in the Eastern Pacific, Hurricane Pamela came ashore in Western Mexico near the city of Mazatlan, Mexico. The storm, which had peaked at 80 mph winds on Tuesday afternoon, had weakened back to tropical storm strength before re-energizing into a minimal hurricane with 75 mph winds upon landfall on Wednesday morning according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
This storm is expected to bring some drenching rains to portions of Texas according to Accu-Weather. New Jersey may see some of this moisture come in our direction eventually, but not until next week perhaps.
