New Jersey’s drought officially is history, and the Atlantic hurricane season is making history

Go ahead New Jersey, drink up and wash the cars: After 300 days, the governor’s office has officially lifted the statewide drought warning.

The decree came Thursday after three months that have featured an assortment of downpours and general rainfalls, with a bonus early-season nor’easter, throughout the Garden State and the Philadelphia region that may have had a lot of folks wondering when too much would be enough.

The region has another shot at rain Sunday, but the atmosphere may be poised to flip into a radically different, season-changing, rain-repelling pattern.

In fact, said Richard Bann, a meteorologist with the federal Weather Prediction Center, “If this were January, people would worry about how cold it would be.”

Any rain Sunday would be the result of a stalled front and “a surge of tropical moisture from the Gulf,” distantly related to the remnants of Hurricane Polo, said Matt Benz, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc.

Polo, of course, originated in the Pacific, which has been on fire with tropical activity — the mirror opposite of the Atlantic.

The Atlantic Basin, which includes the Gulf and the Caribbean, hasn’t spawned a single hurricane this season, and this has a shot at becoming the first season without a verified hurricane in 132 years.

One extraordinary feature of the Philly region’s remarkable turn in rain fortunes has been the absolute absence of tropical-storm related rainfall, which often has been an important source of late summer and early fall rainfall around here.

On the subject of turnabouts, that was the sun that reappeared in the skies over Philly Thursday and Friday after a September in which it seemed as if the region was living under a dropped ceiling. For the month, Philly officially had three clear days.

The average is about eight during one of the sunnier and drier months of the year.

» READ MORE: One of the gloomier Septembers on record in Philly has come to a merciful end

As though the sun was making up for lost time, on Friday temperatures in Philly shot into the mid-80s. While that’s not a record for the date — that would be 95 degrees, set in 2019 — the normal high for the date is 73.

And that’s about what is forecast for Saturday, which should be a fabulous day for hay-riders and corn-maze enthusiasts.

A storm was expected to form along as stalled front and move near the region and was likely generate showers on a Sunday afternoon that would be several degrees cooler than Saturday.

And October weather really arrives with the workweek, said Benz.

Next week is looking sunny and dry with daytime highs that might not get much past 60 degrees Tuesday and Wednesday, and fall into the 40s both mornings. If the foliage experts are right, those sunny days and cool nights should be ideal for the leaf-color.

At least the trees won’t be moisture-starved.

It may be hard to remember that on July 1, Philadelphia officially had experienced 16 consecutive months of below-normal precipitation.

Antecedent dryness was one thing that moved New Jersey to declare a drought “warning,” asking residents to conserve water voluntarily, on Dec. 5.

On June 1, Philadelphia, its seven neighboring counties, and all of New Jersey were in states of at least “moderate drought,” according to the interagency U.S. Drought Monitor.

However, in June, the celestial faucets turned on again, and the National Weather Service Office in Mount Holly issued a record number of flood warnings.

» READ MORE: The Philly region has been a national hot spot this year — for flood warnings

Through Wednesday, rain totals in all the counties of New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania were well above normal during the previous 90 days, according to the Middle Atlantic River Forecast Center.