That's it for This Year

The empty fall beach of 2012, save for the bulldozers and an illegal stroller.

The best way to change what you are doing is to do something else.  The beach, the shore, and the people who call the area home deserve a few weeks of peace and quiet.

BeachfishingNJ will resume in January 2013.  Happy New Year.

Upside-down in 2012

It's all topsy-turvy.  I haven't been serious about fishing since the Friday before the storm.  I can go fishing if I want to, but I don't care about it right now.  Now there is Doug, who probably used to feel the same way most of the time, he's calling me and telling me about how he caught a 35 inch striper and how his friend told him to get to it right away, fish on every other cast.  Doug says he was nailing them on a bomber and a Daiwa SP, and that he had five this morning.  I used to call Doug and tell him about all the fish I'm catching knowing he wasn't fishing at all, and now he is calling me telling me about all the fish he is catching and I'm not fishing at all.  I can't fish my beach right now, at least not in the way I want to, and Doug can wake up every morning and fish his beach any way he wants to and everyday he wants to.

The end of a healthy beach system

Where there used to be huge dunes, there is cosmetic Band-Aid sand.  I've seen every mile of the Jersey Shore, and these used to be some of the biggest dunes in the developed areas.  Now it's cosmetic Band-Aid sand.  All those years of beach grass and root systems, gone.  Replaced by mush that will wash away in half a tide.  I'll never forget that earthy plant smell that was in the air while the ocean was eating the real dunes.  The 1984 Northeaster took a good amount (learned from photographs) and some came back, but not all of it.  The 1991 and 1992 storms took a lot more, some came back, but a lot didn't.  This storm took most of what was left.

The end of an age.

You know when people say 'you can't buy happiness'.  Sometimes I think that philosophy should be bulldozed up and put in the trash pile in the parking lot.  Tangible things are just as important as intangible things.  So even though many people have made it through with the intangible thing called their life, many of those people have lost or damaged possessions.  So when I see a giant pile of ruined stuff in the parking lot, I empathize with those whose stuff it is and what they are going through right now.  Your life, the lives around you, your home, your cars and your possessions are how I order what is important.  Any loss or damage to any of those five things is going to hurt, and I can feel that hurt coming from the island right now when I tune in.

Another perspective of how much east wind was over the ocean on the day of landfall.

The prevailing wind in the middle latitudes is westerly.  It was very unusual to have easterly winds across the entire North Atlantic on October 29th, the day of landfall.  The degree of how unusual that is, is equivalent to going up to someone and having them say it was the warmest October in Nuuk, Greenland since at least 1978, right around where that high pressure that made all the east winds was getting jammed up.

Banned from the big sky.  Donald was shut out from his first beach view in a month by fog.  Sometimes you just know.

Donald and I needed to get out from inland and so he decided to take a fishing road trip.  My enthusiasm for it was about level with staying inside, but I opted for the trip.  We woke up to fog, drove down in fog, and hit the beach in fog.  Weather refugees who can't escape.  We hit the beach and the water actually looked pretty good, from what we could see of it.  I gave it about 10 casts with a yellow mambo.  No hits.  Ok let's get out of here.  We checked another beach, cast for a bit, looked at each other and didn't have to say nahhhh.  Let's get out of here.  If it's not going to be correct, it's not going to be correct.  One thing I do is let myself do what it wants, and it is telling me that I have no patience to cast into quiet water with a damp S wind in my face.  I can't put it together to fish this fall, and so I won't.

Marine Cyclonic Storm

Of course the real reason for the trip was the brainstorm session of what official name to give a type of storm like Frankenstorm Super Storm Hurricane Hybrid Sandy.  It took Donald all of 10 seconds to say without reservation MARINE CYCLONIC STORM.  I instantly liked it.  It was a marine cyclonic storm.  It was a cyclone that had originated over the ocean and was sustained and energized, at least partially, by being over the ocean.  That leaves the tropical and extratropical confusion out of the name, since marine cyclonic storms are storms that display both tropical and extratropical characteristics.  Then the official weather forecast will look like this:

. . . DANGEROUS MARINE CYCLONIC STORM HEADING FOR MID-ATLANTIC COAST WITH LANDFALL EXPECTED SOMEWHERE IN NEW JERSEY . . . THIS STORM IS VERY LARGE AND IS EXPECTED TO HAVE A WIDESPREAD IMPACT . . .

. . . A DANGEROUS MARINE CYCLONIC STORM IS FORECAST TO LANDFALL IN THE EASTERN UNITED STATES.  A LARGE BLOCKING HIGH PRESSURE NEAR GREENLAND IS FORECAST TO STEER THE STORM INTO NEW JERSEY.  THE HIGHEST WINDS IN THE CYCLONE ARE 90MPH WITH GUSTS TO 115MPH.  PRESSURE IS 941MB.  THIS IS A VERY DANGEROUS SYSTEM.  LANDFALL IS EXPECTED TO COINCIDE WITH THE FULL MOON HIGH TIDE.  THE COMBINATION OF A LARGE FETCH OF EASTERLY WINDS AROUND THE BLOCKING HIGH, THE WINDS OF THE STORM, EXCEEDINGLY LOW ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE, AND THE ANTICIPATED ARRIVAL OF THE STORM AT AN ASTRONOMICAL HIGH TIDE WILL CREATE A POSSIBLE RECORD STORM SURGE NORTH AND EAST OF THE CENTER.  THE STORM SURGE MAY REACH 10-15FT.  BARRIER ISLAND OVER WASH AND SEVERE BACK BAY FLOODING IS LIKELY WHERE THE SURGE COMES ASHORE.  INLAND, HIGH WINDS GUSTING FROM 80-90MPH WILL LIKELY CAUSE WIDESPREAD DOWNED TREES AND POSSIBLY LONG LASTING POWER OUTAGES . . .

. . . A MARINE CYCLONIC STORM IS A CYCLONE THAT ORIGINATES OVER MARINE WATERS . . . AND IS NEITHER CLASSIFIED AS A TROPICAL CYCLONE OR AN EXTRATROPICAL CYCLONE . . .

It was at times extratropical, at times a hurricane, and most times it was a cyclone that wasn't really either one.  It's in its own class.  Marine Cyclonic Storms.  The Marine Cyclonic Storm of 2012.  The 2012 Marine Cyclonic Storm.  Marine Cyclonic Storms.

So Doug catches all the fish now, I'm not fishing.  The dunes were huge, now they are fake.  The westerlies became easterlies, even if only for a bit.  Donald and I fish lures, but we fished a beach that is known for bait.

What is next?

The Wind is Northeast, Again and Again . . .

Say you know someone with an eating disorder.  What they really are is very organized and systematic- orderly- about eating, it's just that their way of organizing things may be detrimental.  A self-proclaimed anorexic, for example, is likely someone who eats a lot less than average.  They do the same ordered pattern everyday- eat less, eat less, eat less- and get extremely skinny.  On the other end of the spectrum, there are some people who do the same pattern- day after day, after day, after day- and they get extremely unhealthy.  And then you have people who are extremely diverse- they eat some junk food here and there, but they exercise, they take the stairs once in a while, and those people tend to not be so extreme.

NE wind, again, fair weather NE wind, AGAIN

What's the wind?  Northeast.  Hey, how was Long Beach Island?  Uhh, damp and dreary the wind was northeast, again.  Hybrid-storm Sandy had N and NE wind, and was followed by another low pressure with N and NE wind.  Now, since at least Tuesday the 13th, the wind has been from the N to ENE for 8 consecutive days, and is forecast for one more.  There is one area in the world where something like this would not be too unusual, which is the tropics.  Where the trade winds blow it's like NE today, E tomorrow, NE the next day.  The only thing that swings the wind around to the W in the tropics is a hurricane.  See, I look at the houses on pilings that look like North Carolina, flat beaches where there never used to be, and day after day of NE winds right now.  And then I would go fishing or something, but I can't do that.

High pressure NE winds

A high pressure area over eastern Canada has not been too motivated for at least the past week, and neither has a stationary front near the Carolinas.  Between the two weather features, persistent NE winds have been directed at New Jersey.  That's kind of off for November when weather systems usually move along faster, and the prevailing wind between storms is from the W.

When I saw this weather map midday with the storm due in the evening, I quietly said oh ****

I usually don't like to make guarantees, but I have confidence in saying no one really 'heard about' the giant fetch of E winds over the Atlantic Ocean due to a blocking, or stuck, high pressure near Greenland, of which Sandy was only a part.  It wasn't just Sandy bringing in the water- NE winds behind the storm extended across nearly the entire Atlantic Ocean from Ireland to New Jersey.  The only other time I saw a map with that was from the 1962 Great Atlantic Storm- but that was a high pressure and one HUGE storm.  This was a high pressure and three smaller storms, one of which was giant, including Sandy, a low in the central Atlantic, and a front moving through the United Kingdom.  I was aware of all this stuff when I saw this map midday on Monday, when the waves were still hitting the dunes at low tide, and the highest storm surge was going to hit exactly at a full moon high tide.  And it wasn't just Sandy coming in- it was 3,000 miles of Atlantic Ocean.

There was a reason the play on words 'Frankenstorm' was being used to describe Sandy.  Compare the image of Sandy as a 'hurricane' with 1989 Hurricane Hugo as a hurricane.

So there was a high pressure that was stuck near Greenland forcing the entire Atlantic from Ireland into New Jersey.  And then there was a storm that was one of the most confused mass of rotating wind and clouds ever observed.  And now, the wind is stuck out of the NE day after day, and is forecast to be NE for the 9th consecutive day, tomorrow.  And I can't go fishing or surfing right now, so I am forced to put a lot of my energy into the weather, which is needed to break the patterns that it keeps getting stuck in, however, I don't believe I am the one that could provide all that force.  It takes a lot of people who have their head in the correct place to get an anorexic to eat again, or to get a 799lb person not to eat again.  And it takes even more to get those people to eat correctly and have happy lives, but it is possible.  It takes a lot of people to break their own patterns to get high pressure systems to move again, and to not have the wind NE for 9 days in a row pushing the waves back under broken houses on pilings.

Change the tempo, but never miss a beat.  If the wind is going to be NE a lot, I will use it to my advantage.

I believe in some hocus-pocus that no matter how horrible things are or seem to be, there is always an opportunity to make things better, and that a choice to make things better is available every moment.  So long as you are not dead, you have the choice of making this world around you more vibrant, energized, healthy, and a wonderful place.  Or there is the option of having the wind get stuck from the NE for 9 days, one week after a northeaster and a hybrid storm with NE winds, and you can have NE wind every day so that the remainder of the crumpled houses get washed away into the ocean.  There is the option of making people cry because their house is gone or because the bills to clean the first floor are through the roof.  Another option is to knock a person's house down, not tell them why or who did it, and then give them some checks and a handshake.  These are the times that try men's souls.

The Year Without a Fall

The year without a fall, 2012.  Following the year with a devastating summer drought in the center of the country, and the year with a record lack of summer sea ice in the Arctic Ocean.  Coming after the summer in March heat wave last spring, which followed plants blooming during January in Chicago.  And before that were the summer heat waves and droughts in 2010 and 2011 that cost, I don't know who paid for it, but those events cost billions and billions of dollars to mitigate.  And before that was Canada's warmest and driest winter in history.  Of course, people in the Northeast may not have known about that one because they were too busy shoveling the snow that was supposed to go to Canada.

But no matter how much I read about the drought and the damage it does, or about the ice-free Arctic Ocean, or about too much rain somewhere- things I now read about frequently- and I read about how homes and businesses are ruined.  This one died, that one died.  I read about it so much I was like 'yeah Texas looks like Mars right now from the drought, and North Dakota looks like a Great Lake from the flood' but those places always seemed so far away. 

As much as I could read the words and make pictures in my head to understand, it was only in my head.  I could make an image of the dusty soil, smell it, in my brain, but then I'd walk across the street, climb the steps over the dune, and go surf in a large body of water.  Everything outside of me looked ok, smelled ok, I could still hear the traffic, so whatever.  I was reading about, imaging about the drought here, the lack of ice here, the too much snow there, but I wasn't experiencing those things.

The new Mantoloking.

Until now.  You can read and read and read and look at maps and pictures and hear stories and watch television.  And you can hear about how the largest tributary in the Amazon almost dried up a few years ago, yeah yeah whatever.  Or about how farmers in Texas had to ship their dying cattle away because there was no water blah blah blah.  It's all somewhere else, it's not me, it's them, whoever they are, I don't know them.  And then it's your turn.  It's you.  You're the one cleaning up the shriveled up chickens in the yard.  Suddenly, you're the one who is ripping out the first floor becuase the water got too high, because there was too much water at once.  And then the rush of knowledge is overwhelming, because experience is a more complete teacher than some words and pictures on a screen.

My lifelong recurring dream of being able to see the waves from the house came true.  I take that to mean my other lifelong recurring dreams will also come true.

Getting bused into the island the other day, coming over the Mantoloking Bridge and seeing a giant open space where the inlet was already filled in, was something.  There were cranes, huge things, and lots of equipment.  It was strange and didn't look like home.  Police were everywhere, construction crews, and the National Guard was in sight almost continously.  One parking lot had been turned into an operations center and another was filled with a mountain of sand and debris.  The air stunk of deisel.  The effort looked extraordinary.  Since I have such an obsession with the weather, I used some time on the bus to think about the storm that was repsonsible for all this effort I was seeing, since I like to get to the root of things.

When the poles are cold, the line between the poles and tropics is stronger, and extratropical cyclones and tropical cyclones tend to be in their assigned places.

When the poles are cold, extratropical cyclones and tropical cyclones, in other words storms that have certain qualities, tend to stay in their assigned places.  It may seem odd, but usually the colder it is in Canada the warmer it will be in Florida.  That's because for as much as cold air in Canada wants to rush down to Florida, warm air from the tropics wants to rush towards the pole.  The battle between warm air moving north and cold air moving south tends to keep things where they should be.  A powerful hurricane may make it farther north than is usual, like in 1938, 1944, 1954 or 1960, but the storms in those years had the identity of a hurricane.

When the poles are warm, now, things get mushy and homogenized.  So you get storms whose identity is made from parts of both.  It this case it was the worst: broad wind field (extratropical) of strong winds (tropical).

With the poles warmer, nowadays, the division between the poles and the tropics is a lot miushier.  It's not like extratropical cyclones and tropical cyclones swirl around with a placard saying I am an extratropical cyclone or I am a tropical cyclone.  The storms just are, and there are certain similar qualities that humans observe and then classify the storms as either an extratropical cyclone or a tropical cyclone.  Like male and female.

And then you get a storm that comes along and it's like is that a guy or a girl?  I think it's a guy, but it looks like a girl.  Maybe it's a girl, she has nice legs, but it could be a guy.  What is it?  Is it an extratropical cyclone or a tropical cyclone?  It kind of has fronts, but it is also warm around the center.  The wind is high, but it should be a lot higher for how low the pressure is.  What is it?  Boy or girl?  Extratropoical or tropical?  What do we call it.  It's something between.  I never used to notice them before, now I am seeing them all over.

It was hard to believe that I was on the beach in November and was questioning whether or not I should go fishing.  However, I'm glad someone was trying.

The water was surprisingly clear and clean.

So 2012, for me, is the year without a fall.  No fishing.  No surfing.  No being near or in the ocean during what is normally the best season to do those things.  I felt like I was intruding when I went for a drive to look at the water yesterday.  And I got a very sure message that I was, which means I may not go to the beach again until the major repairs are over, even if it takes months.  All I could think to say to myself when I walked on the beach was that it looks like somewhere else.  It's somewhere else.  That's the same thing I used to say about the flood in Australia or the heat wave in Russia in 2010.  It's somewhere else.  It's somewhere else.  Now, IT'S HERE.