Warm water off Jersey Shore.
 

We just spent a beautiful week with family in Toms River NJ and went to Seaside Heights for a couple of days. The weather was beautiful and warm for late November with daytime temps in the mid to upper 60s for several days including Thanksgiving. I saw plenty of boats coming and going through Point Pleasant Inlet..seas were running 2' or less outside.

I happened to be reading the local paper's sports section and learned of a boat going to "The Canyon", about 80 miles offshore and catching 60 plus Mahi in 73 degree water !!
All of our family that have lived in Toms River had never heard of anything like this ever and told me that ocean temps in this area seldom get higher than the upper 60s even in the Summer.

For those of you familiar with the Jersey Shore...how unusual is this ?

Thanks

Ironically I was talking about this yesterday. We were at the Boca Resort and I was complaining about the water temp, it was 81 LOL. I grew up in Jersey and spent nearly every weekend of my childhood in Point Pleasant. I remember going in the water over 4th of Jult and freezing my arse off. Blue lips and white toes kinda stuff. You were lucky if it ever broke the 70's in July and maybe 72 in August if you were lucky.

Somebody has to confirm but I think the Gulfstream is about 50 miles off Pt Pleasant. I am not an avid fisherman but I think you get some warmer temps carried up there. When those two boys were lost from Jupiter I remember them saying they went as far as Cape Hatteras because the water temp was so high at like 85. 73 does seem a little high though.

Yeah...73 is about what we are in SE Florida in January/February...but 73 in late November 75 miles offshore Seaside Heights seems WAY out of whack to me...and catching Dolphin up there this time of year...WOW !! My brother in law who lives there and I also noticed that high tide appeared to be about 2' higher than normal...along with highs in the mid to upper 60s...maybe we are getting a bit of a climate change ?

Water temps fluctuate all summer long for us in Jersey waters. Seems like it takes forever to get up to 70s. This year I think warmest water was several weeks after Labor Day weekend, go figure. This time last year we were boating down in Boca Grande, FL to escape the cold. We actually had a snow storm the week prior to Thanksgiving. This year it was 65 sunny and gorgeous. One day Sprink we'll have to meet up either up here in Jersey or down there in SWFL.

According to the map 70s seem possible, but that could have just been surface temperatures.

http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/data/sst/archive/15330sst.gif