June 2024 Weather in the Bellcrest section of Toms River, NJ: A Review

Overview

June 2024 was both warmer and drier than normal in the Bellcrest section of Toms River, NJ. Much of the warmth during the month was driven by the consistently high overnight low temperatures, which helped account for a sizeable positive anomaly for the month. In fact, only a couple of cooler days at the end of the month prevented a record temperature for the month. Rainfall was far below normal through the middle of the month, punctuated by the second longest consecutive rain free streak for the month during June at this location. Showers and thunderstorms at the end of the month helped with the rainfall deficit, but the month as a whole featured drier than normal conditions.

Temperature

June 2024 featured much above normal temperatures for the month, with the average monthly temperature finishing just below the highest ever recorded for June at this location. The month began with above normal temperatures, with cooler days during the middle of the month. However, an 11 day warm spell followed, with the first heat wave during 2024 (a heat wave is defined as three consecutive days with high temperatures of 90 F or higher) occurring. While only one daily record high temperature was eclipsed during the 11 day period (with a high of 86 degrees F on the 23rd), many overnight low temperatures in the 60s and 70s were responsible for most of the warmth during the month.

High pressure building north of the region at the tail end of the month shifted winds to the north and northeast, allowing cooler temperatures to drift south from New England. These cooler than normal days prevented June 2024 from being the warmest month of June on record for this location, though the difference between warmest and second warmest is about a small as possible.

Rainfall

June 2024 continued the trend of drier than normal conditions of late spring in the Bellcrest section of Toms River, NJ. After an initial rainfall during the month (on the 6th), we saw a 16 day consecutive rain free streak extend through mid month. This streak represented the second longest rain free period during the month of June since 2010, and was ended by clusters of thunderstorms crossing the Jersey Shore during the early morning hours of the 23rd. Until those storms arrived, June 2024 was poised to become the second driest June on record.

However, additional clusters of showers and storms on the 27th and the 30th contributed to the monthly rainfall totally, banishing June 2024 from the list of five driest months of June for this location. Even the late arriving rainfall during the month could not prevent a below normal rainfall amount for the month. Like May, June typically depends on thunderstorm activity to reach its normal monthly rainfall, and as the rainfall plot for the month depicts, that did not happen.

Thunderstorms

Despite the dearth of rainfall during June 2024, (when rain was recorded on only five days; the normal for June is closer to 10), our Tempest weather station logged six thunderstorm days, including two of the last four days of the month. This value is just short of the eight that was recorded during June 2023, and unfortunately we do not have a reliable measure for the number of thunderstorms for each month along the Jersey Shore. For our purposes, lightning detected with five miles of the station constitutes a thunderstorm day.

Thunderstorms become more likely during May/June as the jet stream sets up north of NJ, pushing fronts across the region. Ahead of the fronts, warmer air (containing more moisture) streams northward, and the combination of warm air, moisture and lift associated with the front increases the possibility of thunderstorm development.

Not surprisingly, thunderstorms are more likely across eastern PA and western NJ (as seen in Figure 3), as these areas are not affected by an onshore flow that often covers the Jersey Shore. Thunderstorms that develop across eastern PA and western NJ tend to weaken as they approach the shore, encountering the cooler air near the coast. Since there is no definitive source that tells us how many storms affect the Jersey Shore each month, we are excited to use the Tempest weather station to forge our own thunderstorm climatology for the Jersey Shore!