January 2024 Weather in Toms River, NJ

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Temperature

January 2024 was wet, warm and windy in the Bellcrest section of Toms River, NJ. Temperatures during the month resembled a roller coaster ride, with warm temperatures in the beginning of the month, cold weather during the middle, and a resurgence of warmth near the end of the month. Following the warm temperatures that lasted into the middle of the month, arctic air swept into Jersey Shore for about a week, bringing with it the coldest temperatures in about a year.

During this cold stretch, mainly locations on the Jersey Shore (including the Bellcrest section of Toms River) received its first measurable snowfall in nearly two years. Though we do not measure snow at this location, many nearby sites reported not one but two measurable snowfalls during this time. Behind the artic air, much warmer temperatures reestablished themselves across the Mid Atlantic and Northeast for the balance of the month. In fact, during this warm surge, a daily record high temperature was noted on the 25th (when the mercury topped out at 61 F). While the month as a whole was much warmer than normal, January 2024 did not crack the top five warmest Januarys of record (temperature records extend back to 1978), slotting in at 10th warmest (out of 40 Januarys for this location).

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Rainfall

Rainfall measurements at this location are automated (taken with a tipping bucket rain gauge), and largely left intact, unless it is clear from surrounding weather stations that the reported rainfall is not representative for our location. There is not an observer to measure snow at our station, but we do estimate the liquid equivalent for the event based on surrounding observations, and this is included in the daily rainfall.

Rainfall for January 2024 was much above normal in the Bellcrest section of Toms River, NJ. In fact, January 2024 was the 2nd wettest January on record for this location (rainfall records date back 1989). Two daily record records were established (2.09 inches on the 9^th and 1.32 inches on the 13^th). Two consecutive months of 7.00 inches of rain (December 2023 and January 2024) marks the first time this happened at this location in Toms River, NJ, a testament to the wet conditions so far this winter, and nearly twice as much rain as normal has fallen during this two month period.

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Thunderstorms

Our Tempest Weather Station has a lightning detector, but no lightning activity was observed within five miles of the station during the month. January is probably the least likely month to experience thunderstorms because the warm air and instability necessary for storms is generally not present in the Mid Atlantic and Northeast states this time of year. If thunderstorms do occur in January, they are almost exclusively associated with strong winter storms.

Figure 3 shows a diagram of a winter storm nearing peak intensity. Ahead of the storm (denoted as an L), moisture is drawn northward then northwestward to the north of the storm. When this occurs, the heaviest precipitation (often in the form of snow) stretches in a band just to the northwest of the storm itself. Occasionally the air drawn into the low has sufficient instability to allow thunderstorms to form. Because of the strong winds in the mid levels of the atmosphere, the storms (if they could be seen by observers) would appear to be tilted. This is a fairly rare event for the Jersey Shore (happening about once a decade), but occurs more often over New England and near the Great Lakes.