Another sonic boom likely rattled portions of the Jersey Shore

Social media lit up late this afternoon with news of another round of rattling throughout the southen half of the Jersey Shore. 

“The house’s front windows are shaking, and I heard rumbles in Berkeley Township just now,” Lisa Stansbury wrote on the Facebook page of Jersey Shore Hurricane News (JSHN) around 3 p.m. Others said they felt shaking in Brigantine, Galloway, and Barnegat. 

Once again, the cause was reportedly likely due to a sonic boom.

Naval Air Station Patuxent River spokesman Patrick Gordon told The Press of Atlantic City that the Maryland installation had a Joint Strike Fighter Program F-35 jet cleared to “go supersonic” off the South Jersey coast this afternoon.

A sonic boom is “the sound associated with the shock waves created by an object traveling through the air faster than the speed of sound. Sonic booms generate enormous amounts of sound energy, sounding much like an explosion,” according to wikipedia.org.

It’s the third likely sonic boom widely felt in less than a year. In late January 2016, residents from the southern Jersey Shore to Long Island, New York felt the sensation. 

At the time, USAF Defense Press Officer Lt. Col. Tom Crosson said the F-35C jet was training offshore from the Delmarva Peninsula when the sonic booms occurred. 

“Test aircraft from the naval air station execute supersonic flights almost daily in the test track, and most of these sonic booms are never felt on land. However, under certain atmospheric conditions there is an increased potential to hear the sound,” he said. 

A similar incident occurred last month. 

In Lacey at that time, Monica Vaughan told JSHN that her pet also seemed to feel something.

“My dog and I kind of looked at each other like, ‘What the heck is going on?'” she said.

Justin Auciello, who produces the Down the Shore blog for WHYY/NewsWorks, is also the founder and publisher of JSHN.