Winter Weather in New Jersey, December 6 to 7, 2004

A wintry mix of light precipitation associated with a slow moving warm front affected Sussex County from the late morning of the 6th through the morning of the 7th. Precipitation started as light snow during the late morning of the 6th and changed over to a mixture of snow, sleet and freezing rain shortly after Noon EST on the 6th and then changed either to plain rain in some of the valleys and freezing rain elsewhere during the afternoon of the 6th. Light freezing rain then continued until Noon EST on the 7th when temperatures rose above freezing and the precipitation changed to plain rain. Snow accumulations averaged around one inch and ice accretions were generally less than one-tenth of an inch. Untreated roadways were hazardous.A dome of cold air associated with a high pressure system built into New England as the precipitation was beginning on the 6th. The high was able to maintain subfreezing temperatures into the next day near the surface even as warmer temperatures were being lifted above the surface by the approaching the warm front. While the warm front never neared the region (it remained in southern Pennsylvania and Delmarva), the high pressure system retreated from Vermont on the morning of the 6th into New Brunswick Province Canada during the day on the 7th. This was distant enough to permit temperatures to rise above freezing throughout Sussex County.