New Jersey

New Jersey runs the long Atlantic-facing barrier-island coast from Sandy Hook in the north past Long Branch, Asbury Park, Seaside Heights, Atlantic City, and Wildwood to Cape May at the Delaware Bay mouth. The tide signature here is a moderate semidiurnal signal that the open Atlantic delivers cleanly to the New York Bight: mean range at the Atlantic City Steel Pier gauge is about 1.3 metres, with two highs and two lows of comparable size about twelve and a half hours apart. Spring tides push close to 1.6 metres and neaps drop near 0.9. The barrier-island geometry — Sandy Hook is one long sand spit, Long Beach Island is another, Atlantic City sits on Absecon Island, and the entire chain is separated from the mainland by a network of shallow back-bays and salt marshes — concentrates tidal exchange through narrow inlets that run sharper currents than the open-coast height swing implies. Atlantic City's boardwalk runs along the seaward face and the eight-block beach widens by 20 to 30 metres at low water; the back-bay marinas at Brigantine, Margate, and Ocean City fish the inlets at the change of tide for striped bass, fluke, and weakfish. Hurricane and nor'easter season can both stack water above predicted by a metre or more — Sandy in 2012 ran a 2.7-metre surge at Atlantic City and reshaped the boardwalk; Ash Wednesday 1962 cut new inlets through Long Beach Island. The fishing-pier culture at the Steel Pier, the salt-water-taffy boardwalk tradition, and the working clam fleet out of Cape May all read the table for different windows. NOAA CO-OPS runs the authoritative gauge network and harmonic predictions; the National Hurricane Center is the authoritative real-time source during tropical landfall events.