Strong winds and heavy rain knocked out power to thousands of homes and businesses in New Jersey Wednesday afternoon and Wednesday evening.
As of 3:50 p.m., more than 6,500 customers were waiting for their power to be restored, according to the state’s major utility companies.
The outage total climbed to 9,570 homes and businesses at about 6 p.m. in areas served by PSE&G and Atlantic City Electric, plus more than 4,000 customers served by JCP&L.
The highest concentrations of outages were in Hopewell Township and Lawrence Township in Mercer County, with large numbers also reported in Bridgewater in Somerset County, Edison in Middlesex County, West Orange and Maplewood in Essex County, Elizabeth in Union County, Passaic in Passaic County, and Cherry Hill in Camden County.
A wind advisory is in effect until 6 p.m. for Atlantic, southeastern Burlington, Cape May, Cumberland and Ocean counties.
Southerly winds of 20 to 30 mph are expected to gust as high as 50 mph at times, the National Weather Service said. That’s strong enough to knock down some trees, large tree limbs and power lines.
While no other advisories are in place, gusts in other parts of the state are likely to reach well above 40 mph, especially in areas where thunderstorms develop.
As of 3:45 p.m., gusts as high as 49 mph were reported in the Cream Ridge section of Upper Freehold Township in Monmouth County, and a gust of 48 mph was clocked in Berkeley Township in Ocean County.
Data from the Rutgers NJ Weather Network show gusts of 45 mph were detected in South Harrison in Gloucester County and Upper Deerfield in Cumberland County, while the National Weather Service reported a gust of 48 mph outside of its forecast office in Mount Holly.
Wednesday night, a powerful wind gust of 69 mph was clocked in Woodbine in Cape May County. Among the other towns and cities that saw winds blowing as strong as 50 mph or higher were Fortescue, Trenton, Upper Pittsgrove and Vineland.
Waves of showers dumped more than an inch of much-needed rain across most of the drought-stricken state, and as much as 2 inches of rain in parts of Ocean and Atlantic counties.
Latest power outages
Note: If you are unable to see the outage numbers on your device, click here.
Because of an apparent technical glitch, many outages in areas served by JCP&L are not appearing in the chart below. For the latest JCP&L outages, check the company’s website.
As of 9 p.m. Wednesday, JCP&L was reporting 2,961 outages. That number climbed to 4,032 at 9:15 p.m.
Current weather radar
Stories by Jeff Goldman
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Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com.
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