Jersey Shore water temperature sets yet another record Thursday, reaching 84.7 degrees

The water temperature off Atlantic City set yet another record Thursday when the official government gauge registered 84.7 degrees at 6 p.m. — 28.9 degrees higher than it was two weeks ago.

A run of extraordinarily warm surf-temperature readings began Tuesday, swamping the previous high-temperature record, 83.3 degrees, set on Aug. 10, 2016, said Jim Eberwine, retired marine meteorologist at the National Weather Service Office in Mount Holly and now Absecon’s emergency management chief. The water-temperature data dates to 1911.

A check with the Atlantic City measuring station affirmed that the equipment has been working properly, said Cameron Wunderlin, meteorologist in the Mount Holly office. Surf temperatures have risen above the 2016 standard several times since Tuesday night, according to readings from the NOAA gauge.

During “upwelling” events in late July and earlier this month, the toe-chilling waters dipped into the mid-50s — 55.8 degrees on Aug. 10.

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The surf temperature at Atlantic City has since rebounded and then some. It hit what was then a record 83.8 degrees at 9:42 p.m. Tuesday.

The oceanic mood swings have everything to do with the winds, which recently have emphatically routed the conditions that had made the surf fit for a wet suit, said Paul Fitzsimmons, a lead meteorologist at the Mount Holly office.

Persistent winds from the south that cooked the region with intense heat July into August had a chilling effect on the Jersey Shore surf.

Working in tandem with the spin of the Earth, the Coriolis force, they drove the warm layers near the surface offshore, allowing the colder water below to replace them, said Michael Crowley, with the Rutgers University Center for Ocean Observing Leadership.

Since early Tuesday, winds have been blowing from a more northerly direction, and that has had a “downwelling” effect, he said, driving the warmer water back toward the shore. Because of that Coriolis force, the waters moved at a 90-degree angle to the right of the wind direction.

And plenty of warm water has been available.

Fitzsimmons said that the upwelling along the Jersey Shore was a regional effect. “When the temperatures were cold, they were still quite warm in other places,” he said.

The career of the water temperatures the rest of the week is up in the air, given the uncertainty of the wind forecasts, said Crowley. “There’s no consistency the next five days,” he said.

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Warm surf temperatures aren’t unusual in late August. “This is the time of the year when the water temperatures are at the highest,” Fitzsimmons said.

But not this high.