A line of strong thunderstorms that moved across New Jersey on Wednesday afternoon knocked out power to several thousand customers.

PSE&G spokeswoman Cheryl Olcheski said a lightning strike was to blame for a large outage in Jersey City and Weehawken.

  •  20,427 JCP&L customers were without power, mostly in Hunterdon (Tewksbury), Monmouth (Holmdel, Middletown and Tinton Falls), Ocean (Jackson and Toms River) and Warren (Belvidere and White Township).
  • 4,445 PSE&G customers were without power, mostly in Essex (Irvington) and Hudson (Jersey City, Weehawken & West New York).

A band of heavy rain in the second round dropped close to 3 inches in the Colts Neck-Holmdel-Lincroft-Tinton Falls area of Monmouth County, according to radar estimates.

New Jersey 101.5 chief Meteorologist Dan Zarrow said late Wednesday afternoon that more storms were forming to the west.

NBC New York reported 500 lightning strikes in a 15-minute period in the 3 p.m. hour across New Jersey, New York and Connecticut.

A wind gust of 51 mph was recorded at the Mercer County Airport in Ewing and a 47 mph gust was recorded in Toms River.

Contact reporter Dan Alexander at Dan.Alexander@townsquaremedia.com or via Twitter @DanAlexanderNJ

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