July went down as the warmest month globally since records have been kept. Climatologists reporting in Scientific American tell us that paleoclimate evidence from ancient sediments and layers of ice suggest it was the hottest month in 120,000 years. We don’t need to prove that claim to know it was hot. Heat waves were particularly prevalent in North America and China.
Here in tiny Cape May County, AccuWeather records for July show the county seat of Cape May Court House topped 90 degrees only four times in the month, with a high for the month of 92 degrees July 3. Data from the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction say that July 3 was the hottest day ever recorded globally. For us, it was hot but not unusually so for July.
The island communities, closer to the ocean and with the benefit of the back bay, topped 90 degrees only once in the month. For each of them, it was that July 3 day that made all the news globally. From Ocean City in the north to Cape May in the south, the county barrier island towns hardly inched into 90-degree territory during what was globally the hottest month on record.
Certainly global temperatures do not mean all areas are plagued with extreme temperatures at the same time. While Phoenix, Arizona, suffered through 19 straight days of temperatures over 110 degrees, that does not mean other locations will see the same. Yet, one cannot help but suspect that there is something in the geography of our county that has aided in sparing us the extreme heat.
In late July, the heat that had baked the southwest and Midwest expanded to parts of the Northeast. Nearby Philadelphia declared a heat emergency. But, again, we were spared.
Dr. Anthony J. Broccoli, co-director of Rutgers Climate Institute, says that one factor in the county’s favor is its proximity to two large bodies of water. Being surrounded by the ocean and the bay has some moderating effect on our temperatures. Broccoli explained that even when the water temperatures are unusually high, as they are now, they are still lower than the temperatures that inland areas reach in the afternoon of a hot day.
Broccoli pointed to another factor that has helped our area avoid the steam bath that so much of the nation experienced. This year, he noted, the large-scale jet stream pattern has kept New Jersey relatively cool by allowing cooler air from Canada to occasionally intrude. There is no free lunch, since this is the same air that has brought smoke from the Canadian wildfires with it.
Here in our county, when we think of climate change, our focus is drawn to the ocean and the threats of rising seas levels and more frequent and stronger Atlantic Basin storms. Our geography has, thus far, spared us the extreme heat.
