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Talk about ground zero for torrential rainfall. An “amazing” 5-plus inches of rain fell in a very localized area of Toms River in a few hours Thursday, causing flash flooding, according to the state climatologist… Rainfall totals include 5.24 inches and 4.6 inches in southeastern Toms River, 2.54 inches in the southeast corner of Berkeley, 2.76 inches in Pine Beach, 2.37 inches in Seaside Heights, 1.08 inches in eastern Lacey and only 0.09 inches at Robert J. Miller Airpark in western Berkeley, according to David A. Robinson, the state climatologist who is based at Rutgers University… Robinson said there were some scattered storms on Wednesday and sometimes there are little boundaries in the atmosphere, so “you develop this intense, very isolated storm and it just didn’t have much in the way of steering currents, so it sat in place.”

“There are obvious effects such as brown lawns and low stream flow, but there’s no significant long-term danger yet, as long as we get some rain soon,” NJ 101.5 Meteorologist Dan Zarrow said today… State Climatologist Dave Robinson of Rutgers University says water conservation is a rapidly developing concern. Naturally, this could affect things like gardening, pool use and sprinklers.

No alarm bells are sounding, not just yet. But with each passing day of dry and hot weather, anxiety grows among New Jersey farmers and officials who fear the state may be on the tipping point of its first drought in more than a decade… “A worrisome situation is becoming all the more so each day,” said David Robinson, the state climatologist at Rutgers University. “The next two weeks are likely a critical juncture for us. If we get into the second and third week of June without some regular rainfall we’re going to start to see impacts multiply pretty quickly.”… Things are particularly concerning in northwestern New Jersey, where groundwater and stream flow have been exceedingly low for several weeks. Robinson said this may not produce immediate impacts, but it severely restricts the amount of water flowing into reservoirs as the state moves into its peak water usage months.

Increasingly frustrated with the Christie administration for not releasing the latest draft of a water-supply plan developed three years ago, the state’s Water Supply Advisory Council once again called on the state DEP to release some of its findings so the council can get down to business… Dan Van Abs, a Rutgers professor who is a technical adviser to the Council, said New Jersey’s projected population by 2040 has risen sharply, mostly because of immigration, to 10.4 million from 8.9 million at the time of the last Water Supply Plan in 1996, and so the updated document needs to reflect that. Van Abs also is an NJ Spotlight columnist… The previous report contained a series of revisions based on the one previous edition, in 1982, Van Abs said. By contrast, the new document, whenever it is issued, will not reflect periodical updates. “That process did not continue,” he said.

The largely gorgeous weather in recent weeks has led to a growing dry spell that now covers about half the Garden State. That could spell trouble later. The dry spell encompasses North and Central Jersey, including nearly all of Monmouth County and part of northern Ocean County, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor… “It’s particularly worrisome when you see this in the middle of May because last year, like it or not, we had a flood on the first of May from very heavy rain on the 30th of April,” said David A. Robinson, the New Jersey state climatologist based at Rutgers University… Robinson said nearly everywhere in the state has received less than a third of an inch of rain since a storm on April 20 and 21. That’s about 10 percent of the norm of about 3 inches. It’s also been largely warmer than normal with low humidity, he said.