April 2020 Observations and Discussion

Wind has come down a bit here (North Central NJ) but once the storms and or heavy rain begins again I have little doubt we will see them pick up in a big way

Worst on its way (outside of thunderstorms) with this clearing to the southwest; it’ll allow stronger gusts to mix down.

A little lull here between the front end of the storm and the evening frontal passage. As you can see from the radar the potentially severe storms (for which the Tornado Watch is issued through 6 pm) are moving in from PA and Maryland presently.

@jmanley32 wrote:

@SoulSingMG wrote:Worst on its way (outside of thunderstorms) with this clearing to the southwest; it’ll allow stronger gusts to mix down.

Soul can you explain this map? what did you circle?

It’s a satellite image of an area of clearing the NWS pointed out as well. This “dry slot” moving to the northeast had reports of 70+ mph winds in DE & SNJ; a 76 mph wind was just recorded at a buoy just south of Islip (now under this clearing).

@jmanley32 wrote:

@SoulSingMG wrote:

@jmanley32 wrote:

@SoulSingMG wrote:Worst on its way (outside of thunderstorms) with this clearing to the southwest; it’ll allow stronger gusts to mix down.

Soul can you explain this map? what did you circle?

It’s a satellite image of an area of clearing the NWS pointed out as well. This “dry slot” moving to the northeast had reports of 70+ mph winds in DE & SNJ; a 76 mph wind was just recorded at a buoy just south of Islip (now under this clearing).

Well if its that far north then it didnt effect us here for sure, why would a clearing allow more wind? I thought you neede convection to bring the winds down. So that is the end of it after tha clearing or are you saying its after that clearing that we see stronger winds?

Both. Strong winds will reach the surface via convection (i.e. a thunderstorm) or when mixing causes the air at the surface to warm to or higher than the air above it.

A wild bout of wind just ripped thru here in Long Island City, accompanied by a heavy downpour. We’ll have better “luck” for stronger gusts in this kinda convective nature. It ain’t over.

From the radar and futurecast models it looks like the most severe line of storms (now in MD and PA) should move through between 4 and 5 from west to east. That should be it for the night.
Here is a report from the South Jersey Shore:
“Monday’s strong storms that include heavy rain and winds that have gusted as high as 87 mph have dislodged part of the boardwalk in Wildwood as well as toppled trees and damaged buildings elsewhere along the Jersey Shore.”

It just rained like nobody’s beeswax for five min. If it rained like that for an hr, I’d be under water

Here near exit 10 on the NJTPK luckily there is not much going on as of now but I know there are storms coming later and I just hope they do not result in power outages. Working from home and kids doing on line classes We need to have power

2.04" of rain, not sure how much my rain gauge missed when it was blowing sideways! lol Had some pretty good winds here, a few trees down on wires earlier today, lots of branches. We'll see if the winds pick up again with the frontal passage.

Some rain at times heavy but not a lot of wind. However, really dark clouds out of south. Some last minute stuff I guess

@Dunnzoo wrote:2.04" of rain, not sure how much my rain gauge missed when it was blowing sideways!  lol    Had some pretty good winds here, a few trees down on wires earlier today, lots of branches. We'll see if the winds pick up again with the frontal passage.

Zoo - measured 2.15" here LOL and the sideways wind driven rain helped keep down the totals.
I had some really good gusts up here low 40's

@amugs wrote:

@Dunnzoo wrote:2.04" of rain, not sure how much my rain gauge missed when it was blowing sideways!  lol    Had some pretty good winds here, a few trees down on wires earlier today, lots of branches. We'll see if the winds pick up again with the frontal passage.

Zoo - measured 2.15" here LOL and the sideways wind driven rain helped keep down the totals.
I had some really good gusts up here low 40's

Always trying to one-up me! haha I was debating on putting out one of my big coolers to measure the rain, figured it would catch more of the blowing rain, would have been a good experiment to see how much we lose with the rain gauges!

Zoo great idea for future storms

Like I typically do this time of year I lock the long range thread and consolidate most discussion in these monthly threads.

Expect cooler than normal conditions to persist another two weeks. We are seeing high latitude blocking (-NAO) across the Atlantic and a +PNA. The MJO is active in phases that favor cooler weather.



When it crashes to the center is the time we should expect to see a step-change to sustained warm up. I think the first week of May will be around normal, some days below, but by the time we get to the second week it should be noticeably warmer around here.