Firefighters battled a blaze at a Lehigh Valley natural gas power plant for hours after an explosion sparked a fire at the facility Sunday evening, officials said.

A transformer exploded just after 8 p.m. at Talen Energy's Lower Mount Bethel power plant along Depues Ferry Road in Lower Mount Bethel Township, Northampton County emergency dispatchers tell NBC10.

Photos posted by people living near the plant, which sits next to the Delaware River, showed intense flames and thick black smoke billowing into the air.

Firefighters were forced to stay back from the fire because of electrocution concerns when they first arrived on scene. They were spraying fire-retardant foam on the blaze from afar, officials said.

The fire was contained to the transformer on the plant's grounds and was brought under control around 10:10 p.m. said Northampton County dispatchers.

The plant burns natural gas to produce electricity, according to Talen's website. Officials said the generation facility is not burning.

There were no reports of injuries and residents were not evacuated.

Todd Martin, a spokesman for Talen Energy, said the plant was completely shut down and would remain closed for the foreseeable future. Martin said there was no danger to the public or employees.

"[It] will will take time to investigate and evaluate to ensure whatever has happened will not happen again," he told NBC10. "An investigation is ongoing into what caused the units involved to stop operation tonight."

Martin said the company will work with state regulators on an investigation into the incident.

The plant's shut down did not result in power outages, officials said.

Here are the 10 things you need to know to start your day from your friends at NBC10.

TODAY'S TOP STORY

Fire Burns After Transformer Explosion: Firefighters are staged outside a Lehigh Valley natural gas power plant after an explosion sparked a blaze at the facility Sunday evening, officials said. A transformer exploded just after 8 p.m. at Talen Energy's Lower Mount Bethel power plant along Depues Ferry Road in Lower Mount Bethel Township, Northampton County emergency dispatchers tell NBC10. Photos posted by people living near the plant, which sits next to the Delaware River, showed intense flames and thick black smoke billowing into the air. Firefighters were forced to stay back from the fire because of electrocution concerns when they first arrived on scene. They were spraying fire-retardant foam on the blaze from afar, officials said. The fire is contained to the transformer on the plant's grounds. The plant burns natural gas to produce electricity, according to Talen's website. Officials said the generation facility is not burning.

• MORE ON THE FIRE

YOUR FIRST ALERT FORECAST  

Monday will see a cooler morning with temperatures in the 50s and 60s with plenty of sunshine and low humidity. Temperatures are expected to increase the 80s. Tuesday is expected to be sunny with temperatures in the 80s and humidity is expected to return for Wednesday. Thursday and Friday could see 70 degree temperatures. High Temp: 82 degrees Get your full NBC10 First Alert forecast here.

WHAT YOU MISSED YESTERDAY

Trenton Gas Station Kills Teen, Man: A teenager and a man died in a triple shooting in Trenton early Sunday that also sent a third young man to a local hospital in critical condition. Police responded to the scene of the shooting, a Shell gas station on the 800 block of Greenwood Avenue, about 3:15 a.m. There, they found a 16-year-old boy and a young man with gunshot wounds. Both died at the scene. Police later identified the victims as 16-year-old Jahday Twisdale and 21-year-old Kordrese Robinson, both of Trenton.

• MORE ON THE SHOOTING

AROUND THE WORLD

Pneumonia Diagnosis Fuels Questions About Clinton's Health: For weeks, Hillary Clinton dismissed questions about her health as little more than a conspiracy theory, part of a "wacky strategy" cooked up by rival Donald Trump as he embraced an "alternative reality.” Those concerns are now unavoidable, made real by Clinton's abrupt departure Sunday from a 9/11 anniversary ceremony and a video showing the Democratic nominee staggering and eventually slumping forward before being held up by three people as she was helped into a van. The damage was compounded by the nearly eight hours of silence from Clinton and her team about the health scare, as well as the Sunday evening disclosure she had been diagnosed on Friday with pneumonia. Clinton's doctor said the 68-year-old former secretary of state "became overheated and dehydrated" at the 9/11 ceremony at ground zero. After an exam at her home in suburban New York, said Dr. Lisa R. Bardack, Clinton "is now rehydrated and recovering nicely.” But less than two months from Election Day, it was a problematic visual for Clinton as she tries to project the strength and vigor needed for one of the world's most demanding jobs.

• MORE ON THE ELECTION

Chester Among Highest Homicide Rates in US: A newspaper says only about a third of the homicides in the violence-wracked suburban Philadelphia city of Chester are ever solved. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that its analysis of every homicide indicates that Chester police have closed about one-third of the city's 323 slayings since 2000. The paper said the homicide rate in the four-mile-square city of 34,000 averages 53 per 100,000 between 2000 and 2014, outranking other U.S. cities for which data is available. It's more than double Philadelphia's homicide rate of 21 per 100,000 and slightly more than the rate in Camden, New Jersey and New Orleans.

• MORE ON THE HOMICIDE RATE

SPORTS SPOT

Eagles Beat the Browns: The Eagles won 29 to 10 against the Cleveland Browns. Get your full sports news at CSNPhilly.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

See more Top News Photos here.

THROUGH IGER'S EYES

@susanpincus snapped this cool photo of a Philadelphia sunset.

Have an awesome Instagram photo you'd like to share? Tag it with #NBC10Buzz.

TODAY'S VIRAL VIDEO

Here's how to maximize your pizza experience. Watch more here.

Memorials in Philadelphia Mark 9/11 Anniversary: A march moved through the streets of downtown Philadelphia during a memorial to mark the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on Sunday. Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney spoke to first responders gathered for a 9/11 memorial Sunday morning outside the Betsy Ross House. Read more.

That's what you need to know. We've got more stories worthy of your time in the Breakfast Buzz section. Click here to check them out. 

Fire broke out Monday at a South Jersey auto body shop sending flames into the morning sky and causing traffic troubles along a busy route.

The blaze at Michael’s Auto Body shop along Route 73 in Cinnaminson caused two lanes of northbound Route 73 to be closed as firefighters tried to douse the flames around 6 a.m.

"There was a massive explosion," said witness Bob Marshall. "It was a ball, like a bomb went off inside -- probably one of the cars."

No one was hurt in the two-alarm blaze, said Burlington County dispatchers

Crews continued to battle the flames as heavy smoke rose into the air. Witnesses said they could see the smoke on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River.

The fire scene is on the roadway leading up to the Tacony-Palmyra and Betsy Ross bridges. If you plan on driving in the area, you may want to head down to Route 38 and go over the Ben Franklin Bridge instead, said NBC10 First Alert Traffic reporter Jessica Boyington.

Firefighters had the blaze under control and out by 7:45 a.m., said dispatchers.

Investigators blocked off the parking lot leading to the body shop as they searched for a cause midday Monday.

One person was hurt as a school bus and car collided in Montgomery County Monday morning.

No children were on board the yellow school bus when it crashed along Coventry Avenue at Cheltenham Avenue around 8:30 a.m., said county dispatchers.

One person was hurt. It wasn’t immediately clear if it was the driver of the bus or the other vehicle.

As SkyForce10 hovered overhead a short time later, police could be seen blocking part of Cheltenham and Coventry avenues as they investigated.

A 2-year-old boy died Monday after accidentally shooting himself with a gun he found in his Bucks County home, authorities said.

The toddler died of a single gunshot wound to his chest at St. Luke's Quakertown Hospital a short time after the shooting, which police said occurred about 11 a.m.

NBC10's Deanna Durante has learned that the boy, whose name has not yet been released, was at home with his 26-year-old father on the 2100 block of Kumry Road, in Milford Township, at the time of the apparent accidental shooting. The toddler lived at the home with his father and grandparents, NBC10 learned at the scene.

Police said after noon that they were awaiting search warrants to investigate inside the house and determine what kind of gun was used and where in the home the shooting occurred. The exact circumstances surrounding the shooting and the gun were not immediately clear.

Milford Township is about 10 miles northwest of Sellersville and about four miles southwest of central Quakertown.

This story is developing. Stay with NBC10.com and the NBC10 app for continuing updates.

United Airlines-Taking Science Back to Dark Ages
(I’m not making this stuff up. I wouldn’t even joke about something this absurd)

The CEO of United Airlines, Oscar Munoz, was quoted last week:

"…we should definitely be prepped. A very quick example: Farmers’ Almanac is calling for a very nasty winter, particularly in Chicago-one of our main hubs. So as we speak, our operating team is hard at work as to how are we going to accommodate passengers."

(He apparently wasn’t joking either)

United Airlines is the 3rd biggest airline in the world, with $37.5 billion annual revenue. They also have a state-of-the-art Weather Forecasting Center in Chicago. They employ actual meteorologists with actual science degrees. [[393118701, C]]

Obviously, Mr. Munoz didn’t ask his own meteorologists what they thought of the Farmer’s Almanac (or Old Farmer’s Almanac-they are separate publications). If he had, they would have either:
A.    Laughed
B.    Looked at him like he was crazy

Yet he is actually planning to make decisions that will financially impact the company based on a publication with one of the worst reputations for accuracy in the meteorological world.

How do I know they are so bad? I did an extensive research project while at Penn State, and verified decades of forecasts for multiple cities. The results: the forecasts were statistically significantly WORSE than even predicting average. That’s right-you can flip a coin and do better than what you read from these entertaining, yet lacking-forecast-accuracy publications.

90-Day Forecast: For 'Suckers' Only

Weather forecasting has improved steadily in recent decades, mainly due to better computer models. But nearly all meteorologists agree that predicting daily weather beyond two weeks just isn’t possible.

Some people even questioned us when NBC10 became the first station in our area to do a 7-day forecast more than a dozen years ago. But before debuting it, we experimented for a full year behind the scenes to prove that we could do it with some degree of accuracy. We even showed some "skill" (a technical term) out to 10 days. Further research has allowed us to debut our "10 Days on 10" forecast in recent months.

As if their widely ridiculed 45-day forecast wasn’t enough, the private weather company AccuWeather introduced their 90-day forecast in April of this year. Yes, they actually make a prediction for every day for the next three months. This includes specific temperatures, and even exact amounts of rain or snow. Pretty impressive, isn’t it? Except for the fact that there’s NO SCIENCE that allows that sort of precision forecasting that far out.  I’m not the only one saying such things. Here are some others commenting on the 45-day forecast from previous news articles:

Dr. Cliff Mass, Professor of Meteorology: "There’s a whole literature on it…..There’s no doubt about it: there’s no forecast skill past two weeks of daily weather."

Alison Bridger, San Jose State Dept. of Meteorology: "It’s inconceivable that they could know it’s going to be rainy in New York on May 9…”

Others are even stronger in their disapproval:

Dr. Steve Tracton: "..hyper-extended forecasts (undermine) the credibility of the science of meteorology. There cannot be skill at those ranges-it goes back to chaos theory."

Jason Samenow -- Capital Weather Gang Chief Meteorologist: "AccuWeather calls its new 45-day weather forecast launched Monday 'revolutionary.' I call it a joke. In reality, it is simply peddling a useless product to people who don’t know better."

AccuWeather describes its’ new 90-day forecast as "a valuable tool for planning further in advance, including the best time of the season for road trips, vacations, and outdoor activities. People should not use long-range forecasts as a strict guide, but rather look at how the weather patterns evolve."

I occasionally get requests from viewers for a forecast months in advance-usually for a big event like an outdoor wedding or graduation. I always tell them that there’s no way to make such a prediction more than a couple of weeks in advance. Even questions about which weekend would be best for a vacation cannot be answered far ahead (at least with any level of accuracy).
Many of these people are desperate -- they need an answer -- ANY ANSWER. Those are the people who go to the Old Farmer’s Almanac or a bogus 90-day forecast.

In the words of Prof. Nolan Doesken from Colorado State: "From a customer perspective, there is a demand for this service whether it’s accurate or not."

As the old saying goes: "There’s sucker born every minute."

'Rain Bombs': The Latest Ridiculous Name

"Bombogenesis" is a pretty funny sounding name. But it’s a real name that describes a real, quantifiable process. If a storm’s pressure lowers enough in 24 hours, meteorologists say it has undergone "Bombogenesis." But what in the world is a "rain bomb?"

This is the picture that started it all (courtesy Bruce Haffner @chopperguyhd): [[393129531, C]]

OK, so it may look a little like an atomic bomb explosion – but it isn’t! Here’s what the real thing looks like: [[393131621, C]]

What some people are calling a "rain bomb" is actually a "wet microburst." You can look it up. It happens-not often, but it happens, especially in places like Arizona, where this one hit July 18.

But this is the era of:
1.    Having to come up with new, spectacular names for everything, and
2.    Blaming everything on climate change

Now, if you’ve read a few of my blogs, you know that I agree with the consensus on climate change. But the overall, accurate, worrisome forecasts for the future are made less credible by those looking to blame every kind of weather (severe or not) on climate change. This is what is known as "a stretch." And the biggest culprit in this case is Bloomberg.com, which often has accurate and responsible stories on the subject. How did this get by the editors? [[287977901, C]]

DeAngelo Williams may run for a living, but he's not running from his "tip-gate" controversy.

The Pittsburgh Steeler is defending his right to leave a 75-cent tip during a recent restaurant outing because of what he described on Twitter as shoddy service.

[[393128801, C]]

[[393128911, C]]

[[393129021, C]]

Williams signed a two-year, $4 million contract in 2015 that included a signing bonus of $1.13 million.

But, he said his hefty salary is besides the point.

"She never asked for refills and took a dish back removed what was on it and left a shrimp tail in my salad," Williams wrote on Twitter in response to a member of the restaurant staff calling him out on social media. "Then she would have to pick her face up and work harder on the other tables and not expect a big tip for bad service."

This controversy aside, Williams is one of the more vocal NFL players in regards to Breast Cancer Awareness month. During the month of October the league encourages players, coaches and NFL staff to wear pink on game days to bring attention to the disease. Williams is known for his hair interspersed with pink dreadlocks which he wears both during the NFL season and throughout the year.

Williams mother died of the disease in 2014.

The NFL player was fined $5,757 by the NFL last year for wearing eye black featuring "We will find a cure" and the breast cancer ribbon during breast cancer awareness month.

A suspected peeper allegedly caught sneaking photos of women changing in a New Jersey Target store is on the loose, and police are asking the public's help to track him down.

Police in Brick Township, Ocean County released surveillance images showing the suspect and the vehicle he's believed to have been driving when they say he was spotted sneaking pictures of women changing in the Brick Target store's fitting room on both Aug. 29 and Sept. 9. Police said the man goes into Target's fitting room -- which is unisex -- and reaches his cellphone under the stall to surreptitiously snap photos of women changing in the rooms next to him.

[[393133281, C]]

Investigators said the man fled the scene in an older-model dark colored BMW sedan with tinted windows. The vehicle was also captured on surveillance video.

Police said anyone who recognizes the man or his vehicle should contact Det. Tara Schnider at 732-262-1115 or dial 732-262-1100.

Most people do not associate football with magic, but in Philadelphia it is hard to do anything but.

If you haven’t been following this season of America’s Got Talent, you may not know Jon Dorenbos, Eagles’ long-snapper, is also a magician.

After judge Ne-Yo used his golden buzzer on July 12 to send the two-time pro-bowler straight to the live shows, Dorenbos upped the stakes every time he competed during this season of AGT. [[238904721, C]]

Dorenbos began his run with card tricks of a higher caliber than “Is this your card?” The long-snapper most recently advanced to the finals after he performed a trick that involved footballs, a map and some change.

He balanced his football schedule and TV schedule as he flew back and forth to compete on and off the field. [[391967401, C]]

After the Eagles win Sunday over the Cleveland Browns, Dorenbos jetted to Los Angeles to prepare for his final act.

NBC10 reporter Jacqueline London also flew out to LA in order to talk with the magic man before he competes.

Watch Dorenbos compete live on the America’s Got Talent Finale at 8 p.m. Tuesday on NBC10. After the competition, make sure to cast your vote.

A woman found a threatening note in a bouquet of flowers delivered to her at her Center City Philadelphia workplace, and police on Monday asked for the public's help to figure out who sent it.

Police released surveillance video dated shortly before 2 p.m. Aug. 24 that they believe shows the suspect in a flower shop ordering the flower delivery for the victim. The suspect is seen talking with a worker and walking around the shop in the video. He's described by police as a black man in his mid-20s about 5 feet 6 to 5 feet 8. He wore a green and white hat, a dark T-shirt with a Puma logo on the left chest, dark pants and dark sneakers when he was in the flower shop.

Police said the woman was at work on 23rd Street near Chestnut the afternoon of Aug. 25, the next day, when she received the unexpected -- and unwelcome -- flower delivery. They said the note on the flowers threatened her specifically, but did not provide details on exactly what the note said.

Police said the woman did not recognize the name of the person who sent the flowers and doesn't know who the man in the surveillance video is.

They asked that anyone who recognizes the man or has information on the threats contact Central Detectives at 215-686-3093 or 3094.

A two-car crash on I-476 in Lower Merion Township left at least one person injured Monday afternoon.

Authorities said the crash happened about 3:25 p.m. in the southbound lanes of the highway near County Line Road.

Two people were reportedly thrown from vehicles in the crash. It was unclear if they had been traveling in the same vehicle or separately.

The extent of injuries caused by the crash was not immediately known. Montgomery County officials said medics took one person from the crash to Lankenau Medical Center.