Friday NJ weather: A fantastic ‘copy and paste’ forecast through the weekend

The Bottom Line

Mostly sunny, dry, and mild. Lather, rinse, repeat.

New Jersey's next storm system is still five days, scheduled to arrive on Wednesday. Until then, this is a fantastic forecast. In fact, record high temperatures may be in jeopardy over the weekend.

Friday

We are starting the day with a blanket of clouds overhead. And there are some banks of patchy fog around, but it does not look as widespread nor as thick as Thursday's visibility issues. There's also a batch of sprinkles a few miles east of the Jersey Shore — I think that will stay away from land, but let's not completely rule out a few raindrops early on.

Any fog should mix out by 10 a.m. at the latest. And then sunshine should break out by Friday afternoon at the latest. That will push high temperatures to around the 70 degree mark around the state. That is 10 to 15 degrees above normal for early November. Very nice!

Friday night will be clear, with a little chill in the air. Lows should end up on either side of 50 degrees.

Saturday

Mostly sunny, dry, and mild. Highs in the lower 70s.

Sunday

Mostly sunny, dry, and mild. Highs again in the lower 70s.

Monday

Mostly sunny, dry, and mild. Highs once again in the lower 70s.

Tuesday & Beyond

Finally some changes, as our next weathermaker approaches from the west. I suspect Tuesday will still turn out to be a nice day, with slowly increasing clouds and high temperatures still around that 70 degree mark. Spotty showers may come into view Tuesday evening.

And then Wednesday looks very wet. There's a good chance this storm system taps into some rich tropical moisture from soon-to-be Tropical Storm Eta, meandering from Central America to the Caribbean Sea to the Gulf of Mexico. Models have wavered between 1 and 3+ inches of total rainfall from Wednesday early morning through late night. So it could be a real soaker of a day. Even so, temperatures shouldn't dip much during/after the rain.

The long-range forecast shows things will probably stay cloudy and unsettled for the second half of next week. Another batch of rain will be possible in the Friday time frame.