Severe thunderstorms and accompanying winds slammed New Jersey on Thursday and will cause at least some commuter disruptions on Friday.
NJ Transit announced that the North Jersey Coast Line rail service has been suspended through Friday morning in both directions.
The suspension is “due to downed trees on wires and tracks resulting from severe storms,” transit officials said.
The National Weather Service said earlier in the day that some storm cells that were moving through the region could carry gusts as high as 60 mph along with large hail, drenching rain and frequent lightning.
The lightning and other weather concerns forced at least a temporary evacuation of a massive beach music festival in Wildwood.
More than 60,000 power outages were reported throughout the state earlier Thursday.
At 10:30 p.m., the weather service said: “The severe weather threat has ended. We had quite a lot of damage around the region. Be careful driving overnight as there are likely trees still blocking some roads.”
Train issues were seen elsewhere too, with the Montclair-Boonton Line’s rail service seeing weather-related delays of up to an hour.
It’s unclear as of late Thursday night exactly how severe the damage is throughout New Jersey, but earlier in the day all 21 counties were under a thunderstorm warning. Atlantic and Cape May Counties were later placed under a storm watch.
Forecasters had also noted in the afternoon that storms could spur isolated tornadoes because of the intense heat, humidity and strong wind shear.
NJ Transit said rail tickets and passes are being cross-honored by NJT bus and private carriers. Riders can click here for other updates.
Stories by Steven Rodas
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Steven Rodas may be reached at srodas@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Bluesky at @stevenrodas.bsky.social.