Severe afternoon storms brought destruction all across in the tri-state, including New Jersey, where lightning was blamed for bringing down trees and sparking fires. News 4’s Chris Jose reports.
What to Know
- Heat is finally taking a back seat, but its substitute is far from gentle
- Severe weather kicked off a weekend forecasted to include several rounds of storms
- Relief is one the way, however, with a quick cooldown expected after the weekend
What a week it's been for weather, and it certainly is not over yet.
After fighting through the summer's first heat wave, and in September no less, a ferocious round of storms smacked the tri-state for several hours on Friday starting in the afternoon.
There is plenty to clean up going into Saturday after the previous day's storms brought down countless trees onto houses, cars, and in one case, a school bus. The winds were also blamed for bringing down wires and knocking out power to tens of thousands of customers.
Late Friday, an estimated 30,000 customers were in the dark across New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
Friday's storms were expected to be among the first of several rounds of storms between into early Monday. Then another front will bring more rain Wednesday and Thursday, when temperatures return back below 80.
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So when does it start to feel like, y'know, fall? Or at least something close to it? That starts to come on Sunday, when it will be noticeably cooler. The humidity will take longer to ease, though, and it won't be until the end of next week when we see highs much closer to normal of this time of year, and not as much humidity.
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The Garden State appeared to take the brunt of Friday's fury.
In Bogota, firefighters rushed to put out a house fire reportedly started by lightning. And over in Madison, two people managed to get out alive after a 70-foot maple tree split in half and crushing a van.
A Florham Park man was stunned when a tree came crashing through his roof and into a second floor bedroom.
"I can kind of understand how the people in Ukraine feel when the bombs start dropping. That’s what I thought happened almost," Walt Ciaston told News 4.
Residents across New Jersey started to clean up the mess delivered by the storms, if they had the means, but that process could take days or even weeks to finish.
See Storm Team 4's exclusive 10-day forecast below:
