As weeks of humidity, summer storms, and long, hot days on the beach stack up, our beaches have maintained their crowds. Lifeguards are practically begging for a cool, rainy day, but even when rain is forecasted, it’s been short-lived. Thunderstorms come and go in 20 minutes, and cloudy mornings burn off by early afternoon. Rockaway Beach is adopting a Floridian climate, it seems.
Speaking of climates, Rockaway’s warm weather may be sticking around for a while. This year, El Niño is upon us, a recurring climate pattern caused by unusually warm waters in the tropical Pacific Ocean that can shift weather and storm patterns around the world. El Niño’s effects are felt more intensely across the Pacific than the Northeast Atlantic, but there are several indirect effects we’ll feel here in Rockaway.
El Niño typically suppresses Atlantic hurricane activity by increasing wind shear (changes in wind speed and direction), which can limit Rockaway’s major sources of late-summer swell, like tropical storms and hurricanes. In simple terms, Rockaway might not have a big hurricane and surf season. But that doesn’t mean we won’t get some decent swell!
In addition to waves and rip currents picking up around mid-August, some new marine life shows up along our shorelines.
If you’ve been in the water or walked the shoreline at low tide recently, you may have noticed the hundreds of jellyfish that seemed to have appeared overnight.
By August, the ocean has been warming for months, creating favorable conditions for several jellyfish species. Some spend part of their lives attached to the seafloor as tiny polyps, and when conditions are right, they release tiny, free-swimming young jellyfish. They grow through spring and summer, and winds and currents can then concentrate them close to Rockaway’s shoreline. So it can seem like jellyfish suddenly showed up even though they’ve been developing offshore or locally for a while.
Around this time, we also see the colorful, tiny clams, called coquina clams, small shellfish that live in swash zones, where waves break along the shore. They begin as microscopic larvae drifting in the water and then settle into the sand where waves and currents push large numbers of them along the shoreline. Using a small muscular foot, they quickly burrow into wet sand as each wave retreats. And if you stand still long enough, they’ll happily try to burrow between your toes, too.
While many species continue to make their way to our beaches, one group is beginning its annual migration out of Rockaway: our college-age lifeguards. As classes start up, we lose quite a few of our senior guards, meaning it’s time for the rookies to take what they’ve learned all summer and put it into practice.
The beach may be starting its late summer transition, but with Labor Day falling as late as possible this year, we’ve still got nearly a month left on the beach
