SOUTH PLAINFIELD, NJ–For the third time this month, a powerful winter storm pummeled the East Coast of the United States including New Jersey. This latest one may have been the worst of them all, especially for Middlesex County. The storm, which was as powerful as a Category Two Hurricane at its peak, plagued the area for the past couple days, and is expected to linger into Saturday.
Snowfall amounts ranged from around a foot here in Northwestern Middlesex County to about nearly three feet in upstate New Jersey. The storm had a wide variety of weather including 50 mile per hour winds, heavy rains (Islip on Long Island in New York received 2.1 inches of rain before it changed over to snow), and blizzard conditions. Pressure in this storm was as low as 28.89 inches of Mercury, or 978 millibars, which ranks it up there with Superstorm ’93, the Blizzard of ’96, and the Blizzard of ’78.
The big story was the fact that this storm forced many schools across the Garden State to close, or in the case on Thursday, have early dismissal. The result was major changes to the boys and girls basketball schedules. First, and foremost, the GMCT Girls and Boys finals, which were scheduled for 6:00 PM and 8:00 PM at Rutgers on Friday night, have been postponed until Sunday. Both games have also been moved to Woodbridge High School. The Girls GMCT Championship will take place at 12:00 PM on Sunday while the Boys GMCT Final will be played at 4:00 PM at WHS.
In addition, the Perth Amboy/GMC Boys Freshmen Tournament, which was supposed to have its consolation and championship on Thursday, has rescheduled both games for Monday, March 1st. The third place game will be played at 3:45 PM followed by the championship at 5:15 PM. Meanwhile, the schedule for the East Brunswick/GMC JV Tournament is still a bit unsettled as of now, but it appears that they semifinals will be played on Monday, March 1st as well with the first one starting at 5:30 PM followed by the nightcap at 7:00 PM. The Championship is tentatively set for Wednesday, March 3rd.