July 10, 1926: The day lightning blew up a town in New Jersey

A hot and muggy New Jersey afternoon in July 1926 would produce a thunderstorm that destroyed a military installation.

The culprit wasn’t a tornado, nor was it damaging winds.

A single bolt of lightning caused an explosion so great that it left a crater in the ground.

Note: This is an adaptation of an article I originally wrote for The Vane on July 10, 2014. Since neither Gawker nor The Vane exist anymore (outside of the Internet Archive), I'm reworking and publishing this article by popular request.

A low-pressure system moving over the Great Lakes on July 10, 1926, dragged a warm and humid airmass over the eastern United States.

High instability allowed for thunderstorms to flourish throughout the region.

One of those storms trekked over Rockaway Township, home to the Lake Denmark Naval Ammunition Storage Depot, which was part of the larger Picatinny Arsenal. This facility was packed to the brim with leftover munitions from the first World War. 

Shortly after 5:00 p.m. local time, a bolt of lightning struck Temporary Magazine Number 8, starting a fire that would spread to other magazines nearby. The blaze then ignited more than 600,000 tons of explosive materials housed within.

A crater left behind by the immense explosion. Photo: U.S. Army/Rutgers University

The tremendous blast destroyed every building within a half-mile radius, killing 19 people and leaving dozens more injured. Folks reported finding debris from the explosion up to 22 miles away.

Shaken by the event and loss of life, the incident fundamentally changed how the U.S. military handled explosives in the years that followed. The explosion at the Picatinny Arsenal prompted Congress to create the Department of Defense Explosives Safety Board.

Lightning-sparked fires are unsettlingly common. The National Fire Protection Agency reported that lightning caused an average of 22,600 fires per year between 2007 and 2011—more than one-quarter of those were structure fires.

[Top image courtesy of Unsplash.]

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You need a way to receive severe weather warnings—here are four options

This past holiday weekend saw two separate rounds of devastating flooding across the southern United States—first in Texas on Friday, then in North Carolina on Sunday.

One county in central Texas saw the death toll rise past 80 on Monday as officials continue looking for those swept away by the floodwaters. Several people are reportedly missing in central North Carolina after a tropical storm dropped nearly a foot of rain on the region in a few hours. 

The hours after the disaster saw a glut of opinions, arguments, blame, and grief spill out—a testament to the fraught times we're stewing in right now. But the one message that really matters, the one that can help prevent a repeat in the future, is the one that seems most muted:

You need a way to receive severe weather warnings the moment they're issued. 

There's absolutely no room for doubt when it comes to the forecasts for central Texas leading up Friday's tragic floods. Forecasters with the National Weather Service issued flash flood warnings for central Texas hours before the Guadalupe River in Kerr County swelled from 3 feet to 34 feet. 

Similarly, forecasters were on top of the evolving flood situation in central North Carolina as Tropical Storm Chantal moved over the region. Drenching tropical downpours produced 10+ inches of rain over Alamance County—between Greensboro and Durham—over the course of a couple of hours. This deluge swelled the Haw River near Burlington to its second-highest crest ever observed.

The warnings were there. 

It's an old saying that safety regulations are written in blood. Weather safety systems are no different. Every piece of warning technology we have today—from the phone in your hand to the radar in the sky—is a working memorial to those who couldn't see disaster coming in the not-too-distant past. 

It's exceptionally rare for a deadly weather event to come as an honest-to-goodness surprise to those in harm's way. Despite the cuts and upheaval at the National Weather Service over the past six months, there is always a team of experts scanning your skies 24/7 to keep you safe. There is almost always a warning before flash flooding or tornadoes strike.

The problem—the giant, glaring problem—is actually getting those warnings into the hands of those who need them immediately.

Turn on your phone's wireless emergency alerts

All modern smartphones are equipped with wireless emergency alerts that send a push alert to your device the moment a tornado warning or a flash flood warning is issued for your location. Cell phone towers triangulate your location to determine if the alert applies to you. If you get the alert, you're in danger. 

Unfortunately, lots of people switch these alerts off after one too many ill-timed interruptions. Please check your phone's settings and ensure that emergency alerts are turned on for "extreme alerts," which include tornado warnings and urgent flash flood warnings.

The folks who were camping in central Texas during the flash flood emergency may not have gotten the warnings in time because of poor cell reception and the fact that waters began rising while many folks were asleep. It was truly a worst-case scenario.

Invest in a NOAA Weather Radio

NOAA Weather Radios are like smoke detectors for the weather. Programmed correctly, they can sound a loud alarm when your county is placed under a watch or warning. My weather radio has alerted me to severe thunderstorms and tornadoes before my phone ever made a blip.

If you're worried about false alarms, pricier models (like my Midland WR-300 pictured above) allow you to filter out alerts that may not apply to you, ensuring you only receive the watches or warnings of your choosing. 

I'm happy to help you program your weather radio if you need assistance. Please email me and I'll gladly walk you through it. 

Enable alerts from reputable mobile weather apps

(Full disclosure for this section: I contribute to The Weather Network as a digital journalist. I write this in my own capacity, and as an American writing for Americans who live outside TWN's focus markets.)

Reputable weather apps are great for more than just the forecast. Almost every one of them has the ability to send you push notifications the moment an alert is issued for your location. 

I have lots of weather apps on my phone, including:

— The Weather Network

— The Weather Channel

— Wunderground

— Foreca

— WFMY Radar

— Google Weather

I have each one set to deliver me push alerts when a severe weather watch or warning is issued where I live. (Even TWN's app, built for Canadians, sends me alerts almost the instant they're issued here in North Carolina!)

Lemme tell you...the way my cell phone blings like a slot machine whenever a bad storm threatens my town, you'd think I won the jackpot.  But I like that redundancy! Redundancy is key when it comes to staying ahead of severe weather. It's better to be overwarned than not warned at all.

Look into CodeRED alerts for your community

Most municipalities offer lots of ways to receive emergency notifications from local officials, covering everything from road closures to tornado warnings. Both my city and my county use CodeRED to send out notifications when something urgent happens nearby.

See if your area participates in the CodeRED Alerts network. You can receive severe weather alerts, as well as public safety alerts, sent to you via text message, phone call, email, and I think there's even an app. 

No matter how you choose to get warnings, please ensure that you've got a way to receive immediate word of severe weather no matter where you are or what you're doing. We are the first generations in human history to have the knowledge and technology to stay safe from destructive weather. Take advantage of it..

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Sad sack of clouds becomes Atlantic's first named storm of 2025

A center of low pressure over the north-central Atlantic Ocean earned the distinction of becoming the basin's first named tropical system of the year on Tuesday.

After several days of playing "will it, won't it," the system displayed enough thunderstorm activity near the center of the storm to qualify as Tropical Storm Andrea.

The National Hurricane Center wrote in their forecast discussion: "Even though deep convection is now decreasing, due to the persistent convection overnight and pulsing convection over the past 36 hours, the system has met the criteria of being classified as a tropical storm, albeit a marginal one, making Tropical Storm Andrea the first Atlantic storm of the year."

That's meteorologist-ese for "it's a sad sack of clouds." Andrea will remain out to sea and should fall apart by Wednesday morning.

Climatologically speaking, the Atlantic's first named storm usually forms around June 20th, so we're only a few days behind on that front. The heart of the season remains a long way off—activity usually ramps up in August before reaching its peak during the second week of September.

Seasonal outlooks published by both NOAA and Colorado State University call for an above-average season across the Atlantic in the weeks and months ahead. These forecasts are based on warmer-than-usual ocean waters, an uptick in monsoon activity over western Africa, and a lack of El Niño conditions in the Pacific Ocean.

Make sure you're prepared for hurricane season well before a storm forms—whether you're on the coast or hundreds of miles inland.

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Upcoming heat wave isn't "just summer." Heat is a prolific killer.

The first major heat wave of the season is on the way for a large swath of the eastern United States, with a prolonged stretch of daytime high temperatures in the 90s with heat indices in the 100s likely.

Every time we get a big heat wave, social media lights up with that classic line: "It's called summer."

Always typed with the sneering smugness of a seventh grader, that three-word phrase is a catch-all to wave away any concern about an upcoming spell of dangerously hot temperatures.

Extreme heat is deadly

Heat is deadly. It's always been deadly. Lots and lots of people died "back in the day" during heat waves. Lots and lots of people still die during heat waves. You just don't hear as much about it because their deaths weren't caused by dramatic winds or rushing waters. 

Extreme heat caused nearly half of all weather-related fatalities between 2014 and 2024—often surpassing the tolls exacted by tornado outbreaks, major hurricane landfalls, and devastating flash flood events.

Why extreme heat kills

Heat waves exact large human cost because of humidity, hot nights, and longevity. 

Humidity: Sweat cools off our bodies through evaporative cooling—water absorbs heat when it evaporates from liquid to gas. This process pulls heat from our skin to cool our body temperature on a hot day. Excess moisture in the air interferes with this process by preventing sweat from evaporating efficiently, even when you have fans running. The heat index accounts for the combined stress that heat and humidity place on your body.

Hot nights: People who live without air conditioning rely on cooler nighttime temperatures to provide their bodies relief from a hot day. Hot days and elevated nighttime temperatures—alongside smothering humidity—robs these folks of the ability to cool off at night. 

Longevity: The compounding effects of stifling hot days and steamy nights takes a significant toll on vulnerable people. Those without access to air conditioning, folks working outdoors, and chronically ill individuals are highly susceptible to heat-related illnesses such as heat exhaustion and heat stroke.

Upcoming heat wave

Image: Tropical Tidbits

A classic summertime heat event will build east of the Rockies heading into this weekend.

We'll see a large and strong upper-level ridge develop and move toward the Ohio Valley on Saturday, lingering over the eastern half of the country well into next week. 

Air sinks beneath ridges, warming up and drying out as it descends toward the ground. Very strong and stubborn ridges of high pressure like this can trigger a feedback cycle that compounds the effects of heat and humidity for days on end. Meteorologists sometimes like to call this a "heat dome." 

As a result, extreme heat is likely to build over a vast swath of the country beginning this weekend. The above graphic shows the National Weather Service's experimental "HeatRisk" product, which conveys the potential danger of predicted heat. Communities in the "major impacts" and "extreme impacts" zones could see conditions that may threaten the health of even physically fit individuals. 

Widespread heat alerts are likely.

It only takes heat index values or air temperatures up around 100°F to trigger heat advisories across much of the northern United States. Remember, the impacts of heat are relative. Folks in the south are more acclimated to muggy heat than folks up north, so lower temperatures can have a higher impact in, say, Toledo than Mobile.

Get ready for a long and dangerously hot stretch of weather heading into next week. Heat is no joke—and don't let the naysayers convince you otherwise.

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Huge hail, ripping winds—PDS severe weather watches are relatively rare

Sunday was quite the day on the southern Plains as forecasters tracked a severe weather outbreak capable of producing giant hailstones and destructive wind gusts.

The Storm Prediction Center (SPC) issued two relatively rare particularly dangerous situation (PDS) severe thunderstorm watches for a large swath of the region through Sunday evening.

How rare was this setup?

Extreme instability fueled an unusually robust risk for severe thunderstorms across northern Texas and southern Oklahoma on Sunday. As we see with so many severe weather outbreaks, it was a one-two punch: first supercells with a threat for tornadoes and huge hail, then a squall line capable of producing widespread damaging winds. 

Given the setup, the SPC pulled no punches in their severe thunderstorm watches. Forecasters advised that the strongest storms could produce hail up to 5 inches in diameter—larger than a DVD—as well as wind gusts in excess of 100 mph.

Large hail and damaging winds were common throughout the northern half of Texas as storms progressed through the afternoon and past sunset. While many communities made it through the day unscathed, not everyone was so lucky.

A nasty supercell southeast of Amarillo, Texas, produced softball size hail near Claude and a 90 mph wind gust near Lakeview. A little farther down the road, a weather station near the town of Goree measured a 100 mph wind gust. 

The SPC adds the phrase "particularly dangerous situation" to severe thunderstorm or tornado watches during setups that could pack unusual intensity across the region.

A PDS tornado watch is issued when forecasters are confident in an outbreak of strong, long-lived tornadoes. A PDS severe thunderstorm watch is reserved for the potential for widespread destructive hail or winds—much as we saw on Sunday.

Including the two issued this weekend, we've only seen 168 PDS watches since the Iowa Environmental Mesonet began keeping track in 2006. This equates to about 5 per year. 142 (85%) of those were tornado watches, while the remaining 26 (15%) were severe thunderstorm watches.

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Low chance of Atlantic's first named storm this week

Welcome back to that time of year—a tiresome six-month marathon of watching centers of low pressure and disturbances for signs of tropical development. 

We've got our first candidate on the board just after the official kickoff of this year's Atlantic hurricane season.

Low Odds of Development This Week

Forecasters with the National Hurricane Center are monitoring a developing low-pressure system off the coast of the southeastern states for potential development. The area had a 10 percent chance of development on Tuesday afternoon—not a great opportunity, but not impossible either.

Regardless of development, plenty of gloomy and showery weather is on tap for coastal communities heading into this weekend. The National Weather Service is calling for several inches of additional rainfall from southern Florida through eastern North Carolina. 

Potentially Busy Season Ahead

Conditions appear favorable for a potentially active Atlantic hurricane season this year. Both NOAA and Colorado State University expect an above-average Atlantic hurricane season, exceeding the normal count of 14 named storms, 7 hurricanes, and 3 major hurricanes.

If these forecasts come to pass, this would be our tenth (!!!) above-average season in a row—a relentless slog that's seen ten scale-topping Category 5 hurricanes, plus a barrage of flood disasters too numerous to remember offhand. 

This year's list of storm names begins with Andrea and continues through Wendy, skipping the letters Q, U, X, Y, and Z for lack of replacements should one warrant retirement. This list of names was last used in 2019, and it features a new addition in Dexter after the retirement of Dorian.

In the unlikely—but not unprecedented—event we run through all 21 storm names, the 22nd named storm of the year would be drawn from a list of supplemental names developed by the World Meteorological Organization after the historic 2020 hurricane season tore into the Greek alphabet.

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Stubborn pattern set to soak the southeast through early next week

It's been a soggy stretch for the south-central United States over the past week or so as rounds of heavy thunderstorms hit the region with severe weather and flash flooding.

The wet weather will continue heading into early next week—but a touch farther to the east this time. Forecasters expect widespread heavy rain across the southeastern states over the next seven days. Flash flooding is likely in areas typically vulnerable to standing or rising waters.

Check out some of those rainfall totals over the past ten days. Portions of Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana have seen more than 10 inches of rain—much of which fell in a relatively short period of time. Some communities in Louisiana saw more than 7 inches of rain yesterday alone.

A stalled upper-level low over the desert southwest helped fuel and spark those repeated rounds of heavy rain across the south-central states over the past week or so. 

This pattern will start to clear out a bit—and a new upper-level low will stall over the southeast, bringing cooler temperatures and a constant threat for heavy rain into the first half of next week.

While wet weather will cover much of the region from Mobile to Washington and down to Miami, the Weather Prediction Center calls for widespread totals of 4-6+ inches of rain from the northeastern Gulf toward the South Carolina Lowcountry.

Beware a risk for flooding across the usual problem areas during bouts of heavy rainfall.

Overall, though, the arrival of steady rain isn't entirely bad news. We've seen patches of moderate to severe drought from Florida to Massachusetts, with the biggest lack of rainfall found over portions of the Mid-Atlantic, coastal Carolinas, and Florida Peninsula. The impending wet pattern should put a dent in the deficit. 

[Satellite Image: NOAA]

 

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U.S. tornado count running ahead of average as mid-spring arrives

We're halfway through meteorological spring and the United States is rapidly approaching its historical peak in annual tornado activity.

Based on storm surveys conducted by meteorologists with the National Weather Service, the U.S. has racked up a preliminary count of more than 570 tornadoes between January 1 and April 30. That's a solid beat ahead of where we typically stand by this point in the year.

The vast majority of this year's tornadoes touched down in the mid-Mississippi Valley after repeated rounds of severe thunderstorms blossomed between southern Mississippi and central Illinois. 

Here's a closer look at the hardest-hit areas:

We've seen three EF-4 tornadoes—one in southern Mississippi, two in northeastern Arkansas—with the strongest coming in just below scale-topping EF-5 status with maximum estimated winds of about 190 mph. More than a dozen of this year's twisters left behind EF-3 damage, many of which hit Arkansas and Missouri.

The latest count from the Storm Prediction Center reflects about 615 preliminary tornadoes—which is likely an overcount due to multiple reports coming in for the same storm. Even so, we're outpacing tornado climatology for this point in the year due to several major outbreaks that occurred in March and April. 

Tornado activity across the U.S. ramps up in the early spring and comes to a head around the beginning of June before slowly declining through the summer as the jet stream pulls north toward Canada. I hesitate to use the term 'tornado season,' though, because tornadoes are possible any day of the year just about anywhere in the country.

[Top Image: EF-4 tornado damage in Tylertown, Miss., via the National Weather Service]

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