By Jeff Goldman | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
A breezy morning in New Jersey on Friday will turn into an extremely windy afternoon and evening as potentially damaging gusts reach as high 60 mph and cause power outages, according to forecasters.
“This will be a very long-duration, high-wind event with potentially significant impacts to the area,” the National Weather Service said in its Friday morning forecast discussion.
Trees and power lines could come down, with forecasters warning people to secure loose objects that could blow around.
Winds this morning will be about 15 to 20 mph, with gusts to around 30 mph. By early Friday afternoon, winds should increase to 20 to 25 mph, with gusts of 30 to 40 mph that increase to 45 to 55 mph during the evening. The strongest of the winds are likely to occur along the Jersey Shore and in northwestern New Jersey.
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A wind gust of 39 mph was recorded along the Delaware Bay in Fortescue before 7:30 a.m., the state climatologist’s office at Rutgers University said. By 9 a.m., the office reported gusts of 49 mph at High Point Monument in Sussex County, 46 mph in Lower Alloways Creek in Salem County, 45 mph in Harvey Cedars on Long Beach Island, and 42 mph in Point Pleasant in Ocean County.
The weather service recorded a gust of 44 mph at Atlantic City International Airport in Pomona shortly before 9 a.m. Friday.
The strongest winds are expected from about 7 p.m to 2 a.m, with temperatures falling into the 40s overnight.
The gusty winds are being generated by a big gap in atmospheric pressure between a strong storm system off the New England coast — the same system that brought scattered showers and thunderstorms to parts of New Jersey on Thursday — and a strong dome of high pressure building south and west of our region.
