Lightning, Ocean
- When
- September 1, 3:30 PM EST
- Where
- Ocean County, Toms River
- Coordinates
- 39.866, -74.250 (the zone’s center; the record gives no point)
Lightning Strike in New Jersey, September 1, 1997
Frequent lightning caused numerous power outages in Northern Ocean County. The Toms River area of Dover Township was hardest hit.
Where it happened
Every event with a place to put it; 1 filed by county or forecast zone are drawn at its center, in a lighter ring. Tap one for its entry below.
- Tornadoes
- Tropical storms and surge
- Floods
- Wind
- Hail
- Winter weather
- Heat and drought
- Cold
- Fire, smoke and dust
- Marine and coastal
- Other
The toll
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- None recorded
- Crop damage
- None recorded
- Events
- 1
Deaths and injuries are direct and indirect together, as the offices filed them. Damage is property and crops in the dollars of the year, not adjusted for inflation, and only where an office estimated it.
What happened
The episode as NWS PHI wrote it up.
Frequent lightning caused numerous power outages in Northern Ocean County. The Toms River area of Dover Township was hardest hit. Outages were also reported in Berkeley and Manchester Townships and also in Seaside Heights. During the height of the storm about 10,500 GPU customers lost power. The storm caused a power outage at the Community Medical Center on New Jersey State Route 37 and forced the hospital to run on its backup generators for about two hours.
The radar
The national radar mosaic for the moment the first event began.
Event by event
1 lightning. Local standard time, as filed.
What these are
- Lightning
- A lightning strike that killed, injured or caused damage.
After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.
The same day elsewhere
- Drought in Georgia, September 1 to 22, 1997
- Drought in Virginia, September 1 to 30, 1997
- Drought in Georgia, September 1 to 22, 1997
- Lightning Strike in Texas, September 1, 1997
- Flash Flood and Hail in North Dakota, September 1, 1997
- Flash Flooding and Damaging Winds in California, September 1, 1997
- Hail and Damaging Winds in Wisconsin, September 1, 1997
- Damaging Winds in North Dakota, September 1 to 16, 1997
- Flash Flood and Damaging Wind in Nevada, September 1, 1997
- Flooding and Damaging Winds in Arizona, September 1 to 11, 1997
- Hail and High Wind in Minnesota, September 1, 1997
- Hail and Damaging Wind in Wisconsin, September 1, 1997
More
Every storm in New Jersey in 1997Every state in 1997This day in weather historyWarnings in New Jersey, September 1997
Sources
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database, compiled from the National Weather Service’s monthly Storm Data. Complete through 2026-06; NCEI adds each month about 75 days after it ends and revises past years a few times a year. Rebuilt 2026-09-24. Each event’s entry at NCEI: 5620106.