After an unusually slow start, the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season is now in full blast, with multiple hurricanes and tropical storms popping up during the past few weeks — including the monstrous Hurricane Milton, which rapidly intensified from a tropical storm to a scary, powerful Category 5 hurricane in less than 24 hours.

Amid the flurry of tropical activity and serious threats to people and buildings in the southeastern U.S. region, one noticeable trend has developed. This year’s storms are not making their way up north to the New Jersey region.

Our area isn’t even getting the leftover rain and wind that commonly drifts in our direction after big storms make landfall along the U.S. Gulf coast or the southern Atlantic.

The reason is fairly simple, according to Ken Elliott, a meteorologist for WeatherWorks, a private forecasting company based in New Jersey.

“High pressure has just been blocking everything,” Elliott said.

Elliott said large domes of high pressure have been larger and farther south than they normally are in the late summer and early fall, and those systems of circulating air have acted as a giant shield to block the southern storms or their remnants from pushing north.

“That basically deflected all the moisture south,” he noted.

Elliott said the same general pattern has been repeating itself during recent weeks.

“The first in a series of storms — Francine — went up to the Gulf Coast northound and it basically just ran into one of those highs. That rain just fell apart when it got too far inland,” the forecaster said.

“Try as they might, these hurricanes just can’t get into that,” Elliott added. “The highs just reinforce themselves one after the other, and they (the tropical systems) run into dry air.”

During recent weeks, as hurricane season was ramping up, large high pressure systems have been circulating over Canada and dropping south, sometimes into the Ohio Valley and more recently over Missouri.

“Hurricanes go into the path of least resistance a lot of times, and they will try to find a way to escape,” Elliott said. “Hurricanes look for a weakness in the high. There’s really been no weakness in these highs.”

Elliott noted that Hurricane Milton will be staying far south of New Jersey only partly because of the strong highs near our region of the country. The other big factor with Milton is its steering winds, he said.

Milton formed as a tropical storm in the western Gulf of Mexico, and steering winds are pushing the now-major hurricane across the eastern Gulf on a path that’s aiming directly at the west-central coast of Florida. And the steering winds are expected to push the storm fairly quickly out into the open Atlantic after it makes landfall Wednesday night.

That track is different, Elliott said, from the tropical systems that more commonly move up from the southern Gulf or southern Atlantic and push their way up to the north.

Staying dry in New Jersey

With all the high pressure systems in place near New Jersey, the Garden State has had long stretches of dry and pleasant weather, except for some occasional spotty rain.

Last month turned out to be one of the driest Septembers ever recorded in New Jersey, with many areas of the state getting less than an inch of rain — and some areas reporting less than a half-inch — the entire month, according to data from the National Weather Service.

The dry trend has continued during the first eight days of October, with only a trace of rain reported in the Newark area, the Trenton area and the Atlantic City area.

When will New Jersey see any substantial rain? Forecasters say they don’t see any major storms brewing right now, and there’s only a 30% to 40% chance that a cold front from the west might bring a little bit of rain to our region Sunday night or Monday morning.

Current weather radar

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Len Melisurgo may be reached at LMelisurgo@njadvancemedia.com or on X at @LensReality.

How much do you earn as a poll worker?

New Jersey poll workers earn $300, which equals $21.43 an hour. Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill in March of 2022 increasing the pay from $200 to $300, to help attract more poll workers.

Thompson said, “We also are allowed to pay you for transporting the materials back to the Board of Elections, or picking up the voting machine keys in the morning, so for each district that you’ve got it’s $12.50 to pick up keys from your municipal clerk, or to deliver all the materials back at the end of the night, that’s also an additional $12.50, so someone could earn more than $300.”

How are poll workers recruited?

Besides word of mouth, Thompson said, “We do this through social media, through advertising, there’s portals on the State Division of Elections website.”

She said most New Jersey counties are still accepting applications. “Normally right before an election we’re short, sometimes 20% of what our needs are, but usually we get more applications than we can fill in a presidential year. People want to get involved.”

How many poll workers are in each polling location?

New Jersey law stipulates the minimum number of poll workers in a voting location on Election Day needs to be four, but Thompson said, “There isn’t one election, except for a presidential election where we’re compliant with that, because we’re short (workers) every single, solitary year.”

What happens if there’s a problem?

Thompson said county Boards of Election have supervising poll workers, sometimes called runners or floor managers, who will respond to different voting locations within a district if any problem arises.

“These are the folks who are the one point of contact if something goes wrong,” said Thompson. “These are the ones that we rely on to maybe fix the paper jam or help the voter call for assistance if there’s an issue with their voter registration.”

She said whatever issues may arise, “Don’t leave your polling location unsatisfied, or without calling your Board of Elections. If you’re denied the right to help, we want to help you.”