Chilly Surf Chases Bathers, Some Fish

CAPE MAY — With the ocean temperature about 10 degrees below average much of this summer, there are more people on the beach than in the water.
Fishing has also been adversely affected.
This past weekend, Cape May turned the corner on chilly ocean temperatures reaching 71 degrees after a month of water temperatures ranging from 59 degrees to the low 60’s
Atlantic City’s ocean temperature remained icy at 55 degrees.
AccuWeather Meteorologist Brian Wimer said wind currents were causing upwelling, which draws up water from below the surface. He said it has been occurring more than normal. Ocean water is colder as the depth increases.
A cold front can cause upwelling with a west-northwest flow going from land to the ocean which pushes the top water out to sea with water from below coming up to the surface.
“That has obviously not been the case persistently here the last month,” said Wimer. “Part of it has been an eddy circulation, a weak circulation off the coast that’s done the same thing.”
A letter writer to the Press of Atlantic City suggested the colder ocean was the result of glaciers melting, due to global warming, and sending a flow of icy water to the south.
Wimer said to the best of his knowledge that was not the case. He said water temperatures off Long Island, to our north, were normal.
Mark Eckel of Jim’s Bait and Tackle, said the cold water has affected fishing. He said stripers have not shown up in great numbers.
“Everything is just different,” he said. “There’s a whole big change in everything, different patterns.”
He said bluefish are missing.
Ron Flemming, manager of Cape May Bait and Tackle, said fish seem to have lost their appetite with ocean temperatures in the low 60s in the ocean and upper 60s in Delaware Bay.
He said he’s seeing fewer weakfish, which may be due in part to over fishing. Fluke catches increased with warming water temperatures, said Flemming.
Colder water has brought in more striped bass, he said. They’re normally a late fall prize for local anglers.
Flemming said he had reports of more upwelling Monday.
“Here we go again with these cold pockets and hot pockets of water,” he said. “I don’t ever remember upwelling starting as early as it did, starting back in June,”
“Typically, we don’t have upwelling until the middle of July,” he continued. “Can you say global warming, who knows?”
The unusually cold ocean temperatures are not limited to New Jersey. Reports from St. Augustine and West Palm Beach Florida indicated water temperatures in the Sunshine State running 10 degrees below normal.