High Wind — Sussex, New Jersey

2018-03-02 · Sussex, New Jersey

Event narrative

Numerous trees and power lines were knocked down from strong winds. Nearly 30 roads throughout the county were closed because of downed trees. As of 10 PM Saturday, March 3rd, 23,503 customers were still without power. Free water and ice was provided to affected residents. A wind gust of 48 MPH was reported by a NJWXNET weather station at High Point Monument at 1125EST on March 2nd. A 41 year old man was killed on Friday evening at 1845EST when he came in contact with live wires on Lenape Avenue in Andover, NJ that had been knocked down by the strong winds. He was pronounced dead on the scene.

Wider weather episode

A cold front stalled across the region on March 1st. Meanwhile, a wave of low pressure developed along this front in the Ohio Valley and move east, deepening just southeast of Long Island on March 2nd. This large and very deep area of low pressure moved slowly east over the open waters of the North Atlantic Ocean through Sunday March 4th. This lead to a variety of weather hazards during this time frame.

Strong Northwest winds with gusts up to around 60 mph occurred on March 2nd and 3rd. This led to widespread damage to trees and power lines, causing extensive power outages across the region.

Minor coastal flooding over multiple tide cycles occurred along the New Jersey coast March 2nd through 4th. Moderate flooding occurred during the morning high tide of Saturday the 3rd in Monmouth County, most of the NJ oceanfront Saturday evening and again Sunday morning the 4th. Conversely, blowout tides occurred in portions of Delaware Bay late on March 2nd into the 3rd.

Heavy rainfall occurred in New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania on March 1st and 2nd, with widespread rainfall amounts of 1 to 2 inches. This resulted in flooding along the North Branch of the Rancocas Creek in Burlington County, the Millstone River at Blackwells Mills in Somerset County, and the Neshanic River in Southeastern Hunterdon County. In addition, areal and minor small stream flooding also occurred.

As the rain changed to snow on the 2nd, localized heavy snowfall occurred, particularly over the higher elevations. Southeast of the New Jersey Turnpike and Interstate 95, up to around 3 inches of snowfall was observed. To the Northwest of the New Jersey Turnpike and Interstate 95, up to around 6 inches of snow was measured with localized amounts of around 9 inches. Higher elevations mainly to the north of Interstate 80 in New Jersey generally reported greater than 9 inches of snow, with amounts ranging from 10 to 18 inches generally around 1,000 feet and above.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 734333. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.