WARMING...COOLING...WHATEVER

Shivering in the Surf: Atlantic's Sudden Temperature Dive A Midsummer Mystery for Scientists (John F. Kelly, August 7, 2003, Washington Post)

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.

If I thought it would bring global cooling, our Suburban would stay running in the driveway 24/7. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 11, 2003 9:19 AM