The Calm After The Storm

After the region was socked and rocked with water and wind by Hurricane Irene, a relative calm will ensue for the next week of weather. Irene will set a change in our pattern to ensure a dry start to the week with mild to gradually warming temperatures.

The latter half of the week, specifically Thursday and Friday, will feature scattered thunderstorm threats but should not flood on the level of what Irene’s doing to our region. Temperatures for the week will be nice (80-85 almost every day) and humidity levels not too terrible. It will be a nice reward for putting up with a rather epic storm.

Speaking of that epic storm, Irene was one that we’ll talk about for some time. Rains similar to that of Hurricane Floyd in 1999 and with winds on par with Hurricane Isabel in 2003 were just two of Irene’s calling cards. Winds on Saturday night crossed 40 miles per hour in the highest gusts with the storm and with Sunday’s pass of the eye off the Jersey coastline we were able to get wind gusts that were just as strong.

The historic nature of rainfall in the month of August was not unprecedented; Hurricane Floyd was the sealer of a flood-ridden fate for many in September 1999 after a dry summer gave way in late August to a soggy stretch of weather. Patterns can sometimes repeat themselves from years gone by—not always with the same outcomes, of course, but the current stretch of weather that we had been experiencing is eerily similar to that of 1999 locally.

While some of the dire predictions of “storm of a lifetime” and “apocalypse now” were excessive, the results of the storm in many locations throughout the Northeast and in our backyards were not run-of-the-mill.

Picking up 15 inches of rain in the course of the month will do that to the region. We’re poised to receive a few nice days and be able to clean up and pick up in the wake of a nasty visitor.