New flood watch issued for North Jersey ahead of Friday night's storm

Much of New Jersey is once again under a flood watch, issued Thursday afternoon by the National Weather Service.

The watch includes most counties in the state, including Bergen, Passaic, Essex, Sussex, Morris, Warren and Somerset, as well as parts of Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York and Connecticut. It is in effect from 7 p.m. Friday to 7 a.m. Saturday.

The weather service forecast calls for rainfall totals from half an inch to 1½ inches between Friday night and Saturday morning. Those projected totals are in addition to the heavy rain Tuesday, which melted much of the snow from the area's first winter storm last weekend.

More: 'Entire neighborhood on edge': North Jersey residents face more hardships from flooding

"Given saturated soils and stream and river levels remaining high, additional flooding is possible in urban areas, creeks, and rivers," the weather service said.

Tuesday's storm caused flooding in several areas of North Jersey near large bodies of water. Gov. Phil Murphy paid a visit Thursday morning to a neighborhood in Little Falls, where the nearby Passaic River was expected to crest around 7 or 8 p.m. and could flood the area with 2 to 3 feet of water.

The region has already seen three major weather events in the past three weeks, causing concern about how flood-prone neighborhoods will withstand even more rainfall.

"It's the cumulative impact here, the saturation in the ground, the fatigue," Murphy said Thursday. "We're in one of those cycles right now, whether we like it or not, and we're just going to have to grit and get through it."

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Flood watch issued for NJ ahead of Friday night storm