Last night a huge thun­der­storm front with a phe­nom­e­non called a dere­cho swept across South Jer­sey. Where I live in Ham­mon­ton the strangest part of it was a strobe-light effect caused by dozens of cloud-to-cloud light­ning flash­es per minute, punc­tu­at­ed by light­ning strikes. Fur­ther east into Atlantic Coun­ty winds took down incred­i­ble amounts of trees.

This morn­ing trav­eled to Mays Land­ing, which was sched­uled to host a street fes­ti­val today. A few brave mer­chants like Brown­ies Squared opened with­out pow­er and made the best of it, sell­ing refrig­er­at­ed goods at half-price. But most of the town was deal­ing with trees across downed pow­er lines. Accord­ing to NBC40 Weath­er 162,000 house­holds are with­out pow­er – con­sid­er­ably more than were out in last year’s hurricane.

Links:
* http://​en​.wikipedia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​D​e​r​e​cho
* https://​twit​ter​.com/​n​b​c​4​0​w​e​a​t​h​e​r​/​s​t​a​t​u​s​/​2​1​9​0​7​8​6​6​2​5​3​0​6​7​8​784