LATEST FORECAST: Strong thunderstorms, gusty winds, dangerous heat looming in N.J.
There’s been some buzz on social media that New Jersey has had 20 consecutive weekends with at least one rainy day.
Is it just a rumor? Or does it have any factual basis?
Well, it really depends on which region of the state you live in — and also how you define “rainy.”
If you dig into the daily rainfall totals reported by the Rutgers NJ Weather Network, which has 69 weather reporting stations scattered across the entire state, you’ll find there was some “measurable” precipitation in at least one location on at least one Saturday or one Sunday each week for the past 20 weeks.
While that might sound dramatic, in reality, it means only one one-hundredth of an inch of rain was detected by automated rain gauges in at least one town or city.
So, technically, you can say the state’s streak of wet weekends has reached 20.
In reality, that could be perceived as an overblown claim. During seven of the past 20 weekends, most areas of New Jersey were completely dry — with no measurable rain (or snow in the colder months) at all.
And only a few locations picked up very small amounts of rain those seven weekends, ranging from 0.01 inches to 0.08 inches, according to Rutgers rainfall stats.
Although we have been stuck in a gloomy weather pattern dominated by cloudy skies and spotty rain showers during recent weeks, it would be tough to make an argument that 20 weekends in a row were washouts in the Garden State.
Rainfall stats from the National Weather Service show no excessively long streaks of wet weekends at most of the agency’s three main weather reporting stations in New Jersey — Newark, Trenton and Atlantic City.
Newark has had only two wet weekends in a row, preceded by two completely dry weekends and two weekends with only spotty drizzle.
In Atlantic City, only three of the past seven weekends were rainy, and very little rain fell on the days that were wet, according to weather service data.
From a technical standpoint, the Trenton area has had four wet weekends in a row. But some of those Saturdays or Sundays were completely dry and some days only 0.01 to 0.03 inches fell.
Some parts of New Jersey, especially in the Newark area, saw very few days with clear skies in May. The same trend has continued during the first half of June.Len Melisurgo | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
Lots of cloudy days
If you take rain out of the equation and focus on sky conditions, the past month and a half has been very gloomy in many areas of New Jersey, particularly in the northern region.
During the month of May, Newark had no days with clear skies, 17 days with partly cloudy skies and 14 days with cloudy skies, according to National Weather Service data.
The first half of June has been just as gloomy, with only one clear day, six partly cloudy days and eight cloudy days in Newark.
Trenton and Atlantic City also had more cloudy and partly cloudy days than clear days in May, but both of those areas have had eight clear days during the first 15 days of June.
One drawback: On some of those “clear” days, what should have been a deep blue sky ended up looking hazy because of Canadian wildfire smoke that drifted into the upper atmosphere over New Jersey.
New Jersey is expected to see cloudy to mostly cloudy skies on Tuesday and Wednesday.
After that, the sun is forecast to return and temperatures will be warming up into the 80s and possibly into the 90s.
Current weather radar
Stories by Len Melisurgo
Thank you for relying on us to provide the local weather news you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription.
Len Melisurgo may be reached at LMelisurgo@njadvancemedia.com or on X at @LensReality.