The morning commute ran into water. On Friday, November 6, thunderstorms dropped up to 3 inches of rain on parts of New Jersey before most people had finished breakfast, and the National Weather Service office in Mount Holly issued flash flood warnings covering five counties — Burlington, Camden and Gloucester in the south, and Monmouth and Ocean along the Jersey Shore. By 7:33 a.m., the weather service said up to 3.00 inches had already fallen in the southern warning area and that flooding, with road closures, had been reported in Gloucester County along Route 42 near Williamstown. The rain was falling at 1.5 to 2.5 inches an hour at its heaviest — fast enough to flood streets, underpasses and small creeks faster than drains could clear them.

Source: National Weather Service, Mount Holly (via StormStation247 warning text)

The shore took the most dramatic hits. The weather service's second warning, issued at 6:59 a.m. for southern Monmouth, northeastern Burlington and northern Ocean counties, ran until 11 a.m. At 7:43 a.m. the service confirmed that Route 35 in Belmar was closed by floodwater and that a vehicle had become trapped in floodwater on Route 71. An updated statement at 9:14 a.m. reported continuing flooding in Monmouth and Ocean counties, with restrictions also affecting Route 34 and the Interstate 195 ramps in Wall Township, and part of Route 9 in Lakewood was also reported closed. FOX Weather, reporting live from the shore, showed cars navigating flooded roads in Asbury Park, where up to three inches of rain fell, and a completely flooded parking lot in Spring Lake, where the Polly Pod Brook overflowed.

Source: FOX Weather (via FOX)

Town by town: who was warned, and where the water rose

The southern warning, in effect until 10:15 a.m. for central Burlington, central Camden and central Gloucester counties, covered a long list of suburbs and towns: Cherry Hill, Evesham, Mount Laurel, Deptford, Voorhees, Medford, West Deptford, Glassboro, Lindenwold, Lumberton and Bellmawr among them. The shore warning covered Long Branch, Point Pleasant, Tinton Falls, Asbury Park, West Long Branch, Manasquan, Belmar, Brielle, Point Pleasant Beach, Spring Lake Heights, Neptune City, Wanamassa, Toms River, Lakewood, Jackson, Howell, Lakehurst, Farmingdale and Wrightstown. North of the warned area, Middletown Township police sent their own alert reporting major flooding on Route 35, Route 36, Palmer Avenue and Main Street in the Belford section, telling residents plainly: do not attempt to drive anywhere at this time, and stay off roadways until the flooding cleared.

No deaths or serious injuries were reported in the New Jersey flooding in the statements and coverage available on Friday. That is the good news, and officials worked to keep it that way: the weather service's standing warning in every flash flood alert is that most flood deaths happen in vehicles, and that drivers should turn around rather than cross flooded roads. By late morning the heavy rain had ended, flood waters were receding, and the Mount Holly office allowed the shore warning to expire at 11 a.m. — though an expired warning is a statement about the rain, not a guarantee that every flooded road had reopened.

Why Friday morning, and why so fast

Friday's flooding was the East Coast arrival of the same broad, slow-moving storm pattern that had already flooded parts of Arizona and Georgia earlier in the week — Georgia's Toccoa River flood, which forced more than 148 rescues in the McCaysville area on Thursday, was covered by this newsroom yesterday. The National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center had flagged a Slight Risk of excessive rainfall from the Mid-Atlantic coast toward southeastern New England for Friday, warning that repeated downpours over the same ground could produce localised flash flooding, especially in urban areas and places with poor drainage. An unusually moist air mass for early November fed the storms, and rainfall rates of 1 to 2 inches an hour — locally higher in New Jersey — did the rest. A flood watch had been posted for the region from Thursday afternoon, so the water was forecast; its speed and exact footprint, as usual, were the hard part.

What it meant for New Jersey's Punjabi and diaspora families

New Jersey is home to one of the largest Punjabi and wider South Asian communities in the United States, concentrated around Edison, Jersey City and the Middlesex County suburbs — north of Friday's worst water, but tied to the shore and south Jersey corridors by work, trucking routes and family. The flooded roads named by the weather service are everyday infrastructure for that community too: Route 42 feeds the Atlantic City Expressway corridor, I-195 crosses the state between the shore and the capital region, and Routes 35 and 71 carry shore traffic through towns where many families spend weekends. Friday's disruption was measured in hours, not days — but it landed squarely on the morning commute, and school runs, deliveries and shift starts across five counties felt it.

What happens next

The rain was expected to taper off late Friday afternoon and evening, lingering longest along the coast, with highs in the 65 to 70 range before a drier, cooler weekend with highs in the 50s and 60s, according to the weather service outlook carried in Friday's coverage. Farther north, forecasters watched the same corridor toward coastal Connecticut, Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts, including Cape Cod, where a flood watch ran into Saturday morning and local totals of 2 to 4 inches were possible. In New Jersey, the work now is the unglamorous kind: clearing drains and debris, checking the underpasses and creek crossings that flooded, and confirming each closed road is safe before it reopens. Readers with flood reports were asked by the weather service to pass them to the Mount Holly office, which uses them to verify its warnings.