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Yet another winter storm appears set to target New Jersey early next week, which would mark the third straight time commuters were greeted by snow, ice and rain to begin the work week… A stubborn pattern has been locked in place across the United States for several weeks, allowing for consistent train of winter storms to ride up over a ridge in the western half of the country and dive into a trough in the east, according to forecasters… “When you get into a pattern like this, there’s a certain beat to it,” said David Robinson, the state climatologist at Rutgers University.

The 10th annual Delaware Agriculture Week, a celebration of an industry vital to the state’s economy, wrapped up on Jan. 16 with the Friends of Ag Breakfast… Cara Cuite, associate research professor in the Department of Human Ecology at Rutgers University Cooperative Extension, was the keynote speaker at this year’s breakfast and discussed “GMO’s and Public Perception in the 21st Century.” Cuite spoke about a survey on genetically modified foods that she and two Rutgers colleagues — William K. Hallman, professor and chair of the Department of Human Ecology, and Xenia Morin, associate dean and liaison for sponsored programs — conducted in fall 2013.

Nearly two dozen academics, scientists, and PhD students today wrote an open letter to Gov. Chris Christie urging him to modify a bill that would give some authority over Liberty State Park to a commission that would be focused on the Meadowlands. The letter’s signers- who come from Rutgers University, Montclair State University and even one from Harvard University- said that the 1,200-acre park in Jersey City, half of which is marshland, has “become an example of the type of environmental stewardship that is possible in the urban context.”… The letter was publicized by Frank Gallagher, the director of environmental planning and design at the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences.

The record snow storm that was expected to pummel the Northeast on Tuesday failed to live up to its epic billing in the New York/New Jersey region- though it did hammer much of New England- putting the weather models used to predict the blizzard into question… “There were errors in the forecast and it was significant enough that it impacted the major metropolitan area in the country — therefore, there’s going to be a lot of scrutiny,” Professor David Robinson, the New Jersey state climatologist at Rutgers University, told FoxNews.com. “This is an imperfect science that is being done better than ever, but, occasionally, things aren’t going to work as accurately as forecast.”

In the wake of the blizzard that wasn’t, New Yorkers on Tuesday were asking how the weather forecasters could have been so wrong… The answer, the forecasters say- and they are backed up by atmospheric scientists who do not have any reason to be defensive- is that they were not so wrong. Computer models predicted that the storm would become extremely powerful, which it did, but the intensification occurred 50 to 100 miles east of where the preferred model predicted it would… But David Robinson, an atmospheric scientist at Rutgers University, said that just because the European model was more correct on average did not mean that it always would be right. He likened it to baseball players. “It’s as if the Euro is considered the all-star and the U.S. is considered a good, solid, everyday player,” Dr. Robinson said. “But in any given game, the solid regular guy might get the hit while the all-star doesn’t.”

A blizzard with the potential to be the worst storm in more than four years is bearing down on New Jersey, one that could dump more than two feet of snow, render travel impossible and pour seawater into homes along the coast… If even half of (Sunday’s) predicted values falls, you’re still talking about 12 to 15 inches (of snow). That in itself would be highly disruptive,” said David Robinson, the state climatologist at Rutgers University.