Crowds filed the downtown beaches during a relatively dry and mild summer of 2014 in Ocean City, NJ.
Ocean City set a
record for beach tag revenue in 2014. Merchants and real estate agents reported a good summer. And each cited the one factor that always matters most: good summer weather.
So on the first day of fall (Tuesday, Sept. 23) we look back at the tale of the tape on summer 2014 and find that, yes, it was a pretty nice summer.
Ocean City, of course, has a climate of its own as a barrier island, but the weather data from nearby Atlantic City International Airport shows similar trends.
Many in Ocean City remember a soggy June 2013 that saw 7.53 inches of rain. But this year, ACY measured just 1.54 inches, and none of it fell on any weekend day.
July saw none of the heat waves that are so common to the heart of summer. The high temperature for the entire month was just 92 degrees. Overall, the region's average high temperature for July was about two degrees below normal (83.6 vs. 85.5).
In August, the temperature never topped 90. The hottest day of the month topped out at just 89 degrees. The average highs for the month of 80.8 degrees were almost three degrees cooler than the normal 83.7 degrees.
The ocean water temperature topped 70 degrees for the first time in mid-June, and though it bounced around a bit, it never plunged back down into the 50s as it sometimes does during periods of extended offshore winds.
And perhaps most importantly, Ocean City remained unaffected by any of the five named tropical storms that formed in the summer. Four of them took a path up the Atlantic Ocean and sent some good surf our way, but otherwise came nowhere near the New Jersey coastline.
Heading into the first days of fall, there are no named storms and no significant tropical activity in the Atlantic Ocean. The forecast for the first week of fall looks warm and dry, and, for what it's worth, the long-range National Weather Service forecast calls for a warmer and dryer fall based, in part, on the development of an El Niño weather pattern.
The statistics for June, July and August at Atlantic City International Airport follow:
[table]Month,Highest Temp.,Avg. High,Mean Temp.,Rainfall
June,95,81.5,70.9,1.54
Avg. June,93,80.6,70.9,3.11
July,92,83.6,74.1,5.09
Avg. July,96,85.5,76.2,3.72
August,89,80.8,70.8,9.91
Avg. August,94,83.7,74.4,4.11[/table]
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