March began with a roaring start, with strong winds going up Monday night and temperatures dropping Tuesday morning into their teens and 20s. When you count the wind chills, it feels as cold as the single digits in some parts of New Jersey.
Good news: power outages were not yet as widespread as expected, with only 700 homes and businesses in the dark across the Garden State as of Tuesday at 9 a.m., according to data from state power providers.
This Arctic explosion will also be of short duration, and forecasters are asking that temperatures rise in the low 50s on Wednesday, under mostly sunny skies. The rest of the week will be up and down, with the mercury that got stuck in the forties on Thursday, would fall in the upper thirties on Friday and then return to the forties in the weekend.
If the long-term forecast holds, the National Weather Service promises dry weather for the next seven days, with temperatures likely to make a run for the spring sixties in the middle of next week.
For the time being, the temperature will remain during the day during the icy 30s and is expected to drop into the upper 20s overnight.
A wind gust remains until Tuesday 16:00 in the provinces of Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Passaic and the Union, with steady winds of 15 to 25 km / h sometimes blowing to 45 to 50 km / h.
A wind advice for the Atlantic, Burlington, Cape May, Monmouth, Ocean and Sussex counties expired around 9:30 a.m., with strong winds subsiding. Forecasters say that it will still remain windy, with gusts up to 30 km / h, and therefore wind chills will make it feel even colder than it already is.
Top gusts
How strong are those howling winds? These are some of the highest gusts reported in New Jersey Monday and early Tuesday:
- 64 km / h by High Point Monument, Sussex County
- 63 km / h in Vernon, Sussex County
- 50 km / h at Newark Liberty International Airport, Essex County
- 49 km / h in Sea Girt, Monmouth County
- 48 km / h in Pennsauken, Camden County
- 47 km / h at Atlantic City International Airport, Atlantic County
- 47 km / h in Harvey Cedars, Ocean County
- 47 km / h in Hillsborough, Somerset County
- 46 km / h in Point Pleasant, Ocean County
- 45 km / h at Trenton Mercer Airport, Mercer County
Current weather radar
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Len Melisurgo can be reached at [email protected].