I have a question about sst's off florida and up the coast
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cycloneye
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I have a question about sst's off florida and up the coast
Why those sst's are cooler just off the coast and 20 miles offshore are very warm? I know that i will get the answer to this question that is important due to the potential of 91L to get close to the EC.
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hurricanedude
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wxman57
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SSTs
It's mostly the difference between the Gulf Stream temperatures and water out of the current closer to land:
http://www.navo.navy.mil/LIBRARY/Metoc/ ... index.html[url]
Actually, SSTs near the carolina coast appear to be in the 27-28C range, plenty warm enough for tropical storms.[/url]
http://www.navo.navy.mil/LIBRARY/Metoc/ ... index.html[url]
Actually, SSTs near the carolina coast appear to be in the 27-28C range, plenty warm enough for tropical storms.[/url]
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ColdFront77
I mentioned this in another thread. I heard on the local news (Orlando) yesterday that the water temperatures are in the 60's and 70s off the northeastern Florida coast because of a persistent southeast flow that has upwelled the water. It was reported that this occurs about every five years.
There is always that chance that 90L will move far enough south that it doesn't encounter these cooler waters off the portion of the Florida coast were this cool water is... besides it is only up to approximately 30 miles off the coast. The buoy 43 nautical miles east of Saint Augustine was reporting a sea surface temperature of the low 80's and 79ºF earlier today.
There is always that chance that 90L will move far enough south that it doesn't encounter these cooler waters off the portion of the Florida coast were this cool water is... besides it is only up to approximately 30 miles off the coast. The buoy 43 nautical miles east of Saint Augustine was reporting a sea surface temperature of the low 80's and 79ºF earlier today.
Last edited by ColdFront77 on Sat Aug 09, 2003 3:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Stormsfury
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Actually ... with the persistant trough, SW winds have caused significant upwelling just along the coast, and even earlier in the month, Daytona Beach had a surf temperature of 66º!. The freshwater doesn't contribute that much of a cooling. (maybe a fraction of a tenth of a degree).
Here's a news article about this from a couple of days ago.
"Shivering in the Surf "
...Atlantic's Sudden Temperature Dive A Midsummer Mystery for
Scientists (Source: Washington Post, 8/7/03)
David Quillin, a surfer from Maryland's Eastern Shore, knows what cold
seawater feels like: It makes exposed flesh feel like it's burning,
sets hands and feet to tingling, numbs the body and, after repeated
dunkings, produces a painful "ice cream" headache.
The 38-year-old architect expects all of this when he surfs the frigid
waters off Ocean City in January. He didn't expect it in the middle of
summer. But it's just what Quillin encountered when he paddled his
board into the surf two weeks ago.
"I've never experienced it in my whole life," he recounted, "where the
water right along shore could be that radically cold."
Quillin isn't alone in his observation. Surfers, lifeguards, anglers
and others who regularly dip a toe into the Atlantic have noticed this
summer that water that is typically bathwater-warm has occasionally
become fjord-cold.
"During [most of] July, our water temperatures were, I would say,
right around normal," said Capt. Butch Arbin, head of the Ocean City
Beach Patrol. That's in the low 70s. About two weeks ago, he said,
"there was a tremendous change in temperature, [dropping] as much as
10 degrees overnight."
It was so cold Monday, Arbin said, that his guards pulled from the
surf a teenage girl who was shaking uncontrollably and near
hypothermia. (She thawed out in an ambulance.)
The unseasonable chill started easing this week, but beachgoers from
as far afield as Virginia Beach, Nags Head, N.C., Myrtle Beach, S.C.,
and Daytona Beach, Fla., have been curious about the precipitous drop.
So many people have contacted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that William Tseng, an oceanographer at NOAA's Silver
Spring headquarters, is investigating the phenomenon.
He's examining three possible causes: increased river runoff from this
spring's frequent rains; a current of cold seawater snaking down from
the North Atlantic; and an event known as "coastal upwelling."
While Tseng and other researchers caution that it's only a guess --
they want to pore over data gleaned from satellites, buoys and other
sources -- the prime suspect appears to be coastal upwelling. The driving force behind upwelling is persistent winds that blow up the
coast from the south or southwest. The winds push away the warm
surface layer of water, which is then carried eastward as the Earth spins, a process known as the Coriolis force.
"We're on a rotating planet, so there's a tendency for things to veer
to the right when they start moving," said Robert J. Chant of Rutgers University's Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences. "Water goes to
the right of the wind. So in the case of coastal oceans, water goes to
the right and has to be replaced."
Unfortunately for thousands of bikini-wearing and boogie-boarding
vacationers, what it's replaced by is colder water from the bottom of
the ocean. The icy liquid comes burbling up from the depths as if on a conveyor belt.
It's a fairly typical midsummer phenomenon, as southerly winds bring
hot, humid air up from the Gulf of Mexico. It may have been made more pronounced this year by the severe winter that gripped the Eastern
Seaboard. The memory of that frigid season lives on in the vast ocean,
which warms up much more slowly than does land.
Ocean City's Arbin is convinced that upwelling is to blame for the
cold water that stung his feet last week. In the weekly bulletin he
distributes to his 200 employees, he included an explanation of
upwelling and a diagram of the process at work.
"People were walking up and asking" why the water was cold, he said.
This way, "it's not just a dumb lifeguard going, 'I dunno. It's cold.'
"
Courageous tourists -- kids especially -- are braving the chilly surf.
Others prefer to sunbathe or build castles on the sun-kissed sand.
"It's keeping a lot of them out of the water, that's for sure," said
Kelly Marshall, on the phone from the front desk of Ocean City's Santa
Maria Hotel on the Boardwalk.
Don Hutson, captain of ocean rescue in Nags Head, said he's never seen
water this cold for this long. "They're showing 60 degrees at the Duck research pier," Hutson, 36, said of the Outer Banks town. "If it's 60,
it's the low end of that 60."
Legs have been tingling in Rehoboth Beach, Del., too. The water
temperature was in the low 70s about two weeks ago, said Lt. Thad
Zimmer, 27, of the beach patrol. "Then the wind changed and blew out all the warm water, causing cold water to take its place," he
said.
Ron Kuhlman of the Virginia Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau said
his office hasn't received any complaints. But Lt. Carl Throckmorton
of the Virginia Beach Lifesaving Service said he's noticed it.
"It's nothing that's keeping people out of the water," said
Throckmorton, 29. "I assume the tourists here don't even realize it.
Those of us who are out in it consistently are noticing a drop in the
temperature."
So are anglers, who monitor water temperature with the obsessive
devotion of day traders studying stock prices.
"I've noticed some local charter captains saying tuna fishing hasn't
been as good this year," said Jim Motsko, president of the White
Marlin Open Fishing Tournament in Ocean City. "The season
seems to be very late coming on. . . . It seems that whole fishing
season is three weeks late."
On the other hand, said Dale Timmons, publisher of the Coastal
Fisherman newspaper, the cold water lured chill-loving striped bass
close to shore. "We had two to three weeks of great rockfish, which we don't normally get till fall," he said. (For his part, Timmons thinks
the cold snap is the result of a recalcitrant Gulf Stream denying the
mid-Atlantic eddies of warm water.)
Surfing architect David Quillin spent years in California riding his
board and enduring that coast's cold water. After venturing into the
surf last week in just swim trunks, he was back the next day in a torso-covering "spring suit."
"I just refused to believe I would have to wear a full suit at the end
of July," Quillin said. "And I still froze. Then I thought: I don't
care what I look like. I'm wearing a full suit."
Here's a news article about this from a couple of days ago.
"Shivering in the Surf "
...Atlantic's Sudden Temperature Dive A Midsummer Mystery for
Scientists (Source: Washington Post, 8/7/03)
David Quillin, a surfer from Maryland's Eastern Shore, knows what cold
seawater feels like: It makes exposed flesh feel like it's burning,
sets hands and feet to tingling, numbs the body and, after repeated
dunkings, produces a painful "ice cream" headache.
The 38-year-old architect expects all of this when he surfs the frigid
waters off Ocean City in January. He didn't expect it in the middle of
summer. But it's just what Quillin encountered when he paddled his
board into the surf two weeks ago.
"I've never experienced it in my whole life," he recounted, "where the
water right along shore could be that radically cold."
Quillin isn't alone in his observation. Surfers, lifeguards, anglers
and others who regularly dip a toe into the Atlantic have noticed this
summer that water that is typically bathwater-warm has occasionally
become fjord-cold.
"During [most of] July, our water temperatures were, I would say,
right around normal," said Capt. Butch Arbin, head of the Ocean City
Beach Patrol. That's in the low 70s. About two weeks ago, he said,
"there was a tremendous change in temperature, [dropping] as much as
10 degrees overnight."
It was so cold Monday, Arbin said, that his guards pulled from the
surf a teenage girl who was shaking uncontrollably and near
hypothermia. (She thawed out in an ambulance.)
The unseasonable chill started easing this week, but beachgoers from
as far afield as Virginia Beach, Nags Head, N.C., Myrtle Beach, S.C.,
and Daytona Beach, Fla., have been curious about the precipitous drop.
So many people have contacted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that William Tseng, an oceanographer at NOAA's Silver
Spring headquarters, is investigating the phenomenon.
He's examining three possible causes: increased river runoff from this
spring's frequent rains; a current of cold seawater snaking down from
the North Atlantic; and an event known as "coastal upwelling."
While Tseng and other researchers caution that it's only a guess --
they want to pore over data gleaned from satellites, buoys and other
sources -- the prime suspect appears to be coastal upwelling. The driving force behind upwelling is persistent winds that blow up the
coast from the south or southwest. The winds push away the warm
surface layer of water, which is then carried eastward as the Earth spins, a process known as the Coriolis force.
"We're on a rotating planet, so there's a tendency for things to veer
to the right when they start moving," said Robert J. Chant of Rutgers University's Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences. "Water goes to
the right of the wind. So in the case of coastal oceans, water goes to
the right and has to be replaced."
Unfortunately for thousands of bikini-wearing and boogie-boarding
vacationers, what it's replaced by is colder water from the bottom of
the ocean. The icy liquid comes burbling up from the depths as if on a conveyor belt.
It's a fairly typical midsummer phenomenon, as southerly winds bring
hot, humid air up from the Gulf of Mexico. It may have been made more pronounced this year by the severe winter that gripped the Eastern
Seaboard. The memory of that frigid season lives on in the vast ocean,
which warms up much more slowly than does land.
Ocean City's Arbin is convinced that upwelling is to blame for the
cold water that stung his feet last week. In the weekly bulletin he
distributes to his 200 employees, he included an explanation of
upwelling and a diagram of the process at work.
"People were walking up and asking" why the water was cold, he said.
This way, "it's not just a dumb lifeguard going, 'I dunno. It's cold.'
"
Courageous tourists -- kids especially -- are braving the chilly surf.
Others prefer to sunbathe or build castles on the sun-kissed sand.
"It's keeping a lot of them out of the water, that's for sure," said
Kelly Marshall, on the phone from the front desk of Ocean City's Santa
Maria Hotel on the Boardwalk.
Don Hutson, captain of ocean rescue in Nags Head, said he's never seen
water this cold for this long. "They're showing 60 degrees at the Duck research pier," Hutson, 36, said of the Outer Banks town. "If it's 60,
it's the low end of that 60."
Legs have been tingling in Rehoboth Beach, Del., too. The water
temperature was in the low 70s about two weeks ago, said Lt. Thad
Zimmer, 27, of the beach patrol. "Then the wind changed and blew out all the warm water, causing cold water to take its place," he
said.
Ron Kuhlman of the Virginia Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau said
his office hasn't received any complaints. But Lt. Carl Throckmorton
of the Virginia Beach Lifesaving Service said he's noticed it.
"It's nothing that's keeping people out of the water," said
Throckmorton, 29. "I assume the tourists here don't even realize it.
Those of us who are out in it consistently are noticing a drop in the
temperature."
So are anglers, who monitor water temperature with the obsessive
devotion of day traders studying stock prices.
"I've noticed some local charter captains saying tuna fishing hasn't
been as good this year," said Jim Motsko, president of the White
Marlin Open Fishing Tournament in Ocean City. "The season
seems to be very late coming on. . . . It seems that whole fishing
season is three weeks late."
On the other hand, said Dale Timmons, publisher of the Coastal
Fisherman newspaper, the cold water lured chill-loving striped bass
close to shore. "We had two to three weeks of great rockfish, which we don't normally get till fall," he said. (For his part, Timmons thinks
the cold snap is the result of a recalcitrant Gulf Stream denying the
mid-Atlantic eddies of warm water.)
Surfing architect David Quillin spent years in California riding his
board and enduring that coast's cold water. After venturing into the
surf last week in just swim trunks, he was back the next day in a torso-covering "spring suit."
"I just refused to believe I would have to wear a full suit at the end
of July," Quillin said. "And I still froze. Then I thought: I don't
care what I look like. I'm wearing a full suit."
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wxman57
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SSTs
Yeah, I heard about the upwelling as well, but the cooler SSTs are only right up next to the coast. Here's a high-res SST map of the Charleston, SC area:
https://www.nlmoc.navy.mil/cgi-bin/imag ... 4/chas.gif[url]
And here's northern FL/GA:
https://www.nlmoc.navy.mil/cgi-bin/imag ... 3/kbay.gif
[/url]
As for any potential effect on a tropical storm, the cool water area is not very large. A storm wouln't be over it for very long while making landfall, so it probably won't have much effect.
https://www.nlmoc.navy.mil/cgi-bin/imag ... 4/chas.gif[url]
And here's northern FL/GA:
https://www.nlmoc.navy.mil/cgi-bin/imag ... 3/kbay.gif
[/url]
As for any potential effect on a tropical storm, the cool water area is not very large. A storm wouln't be over it for very long while making landfall, so it probably won't have much effect.
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Stormsfury
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Re: SSTs
wxman57 wrote:Yeah, I heard about the upwelling as well, but the cooler SSTs are only right up next to the coast. Here's a high-res SST map of the Charleston, SC area:
https://www.nlmoc.navy.mil/cgi-bin/imag ... 4/chas.gif
And here's northern FL/GA:
https://www.nlmoc.navy.mil/cgi-bin/imag ... 3/kbay.gif
As for any potential effect on a tropical storm, the cool water area is not very large. A storm wouln't be over it for very long while making landfall, so it probably won't have much effect.
Kinda backs up what I posted above (about the upwelling just along the coast) ... and for everyone, wxman57 is right. It won't have much effect on an organized TC. The upwelled waters did play a part earlier along with other factors that kept T.D. #7 from acheiving T.S. status (too close to the coast and in SST's around 77ºC), and that's only in relation to where T.D. #7 developed and where it traversed.
The current invest tracking due west or WNW, the upwelled waters would literally have no effect on it.
Last edited by Stormsfury on Sat Aug 09, 2003 3:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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cycloneye
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Thanks to all for those replies and for the answers to my question. 
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tomboudreau
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My in-laws just returned last night from a week's vacation on the Outer Banks and they told us that the water temps around Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hills was in the low to mid 60's most of the week. The only water temps they found warm were down off of Hatteras (sp?). They said it was cold, but it didnt bother them much as they still went swimming anyway.
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ColdFront77
I agree with what you're saying, wxman. However, if a storm were to slow down and stall just off the Florida coast, in the very cool (opposed to what is normal off the Florida coast this time of year) then it would have to weaken with water temperatures 15 to 20 degrees cooler than mainly points east.
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