1. Sea Breeze Forecasting and Applications along the New Jersey Coast
Louis Bowers, R. Dunk, J. Kohut,
H. Roarty, S. Glenn, and A. Cope
Rutgers
University
Coastal
Ocean
Observation
Lab
NJ SOS
Meteorological Forecast
Component

2. Talk Outline The New Jersey Sea Breeze
Coastal Upwelling along the NJ Coast
Case studies: June 23rd and July 5th, 2000
Impact on NWS forecasts
Future work

3. Sea Breezes Along the New Jersey Coast
Develops as a result of the land/sea temperature gradient
Delaware
Bay Breeze
Sea Breeze
City (96ºF)
Beach (90ºF)
Ocean (72ºF)
Upwelled
Water
(58ºF)
970 mb
950 mb
930 mb L H
Onshore flow
Warm air over the land rises.
Cold air from over the ocean rushes in to replace it.
A closed sea breeze circulation cell develops.
Land heats faster than the ocean.

4. Sea Breezes Along the New Jersey Coast
Develops as a result of the land/sea temperature gradient
Can occur during any month of the year
Sea Breezes by Month:

5. Sea Breezes Along the New Jersey Coast
Develops as a result of the land/sea temperature gradient
Can occur during any month of the year.
Can affect almost all of New Jersey and into SE Pennsylvania.
18:30 UTC
20:35 UTC
22:30 UTC
00:25 UTC

6. Sea Breezes Along the New Jersey Coast
Develops as a result of the land/sea temperature gradient
Can occur during any month of the year.
Can affect almost all of New Jersey and into SE Pennsylvania.
Focus for occasional severe thunderstorm development.
Sea
Breeze
Delaware
Bay Breeze

7. Sea Breezes Along the New Jersey Coast
Develops as a result of the land/sea temperature gradient
Can occur during any month of the year.
Can affect almost all of New Jersey and into SE Pennsylvania.
Focus for occasional severe thunderstorm development.
Forecast problem: Tourism and Energy
Long Beach Isl., NJ:
Year-round: 9,000
Summer: 110,000+
Ocean City, NJ
Year-round: 15,000
Summer: 150,000+
Wildwood, NJ
Year-round: 5,500
Summer: 250,000+
Census 2000

8. Structure of the Sea Breeze
South Wind
Northwest Wind
Sea Breeze
Front
2700
2400
2100
1800
1500
1200
900
600
300
meters
Delaware
Bay Breeze
Surface Temperature (C)
Vertical Extent
June 23, 2000
Structure of the Sea Breeze
Sea breeze circulation cell
initially forms 14-16Z
Typical sea breeze cell depth
600-1,800 meters
Typical inland propagation
speed 1-10 km/hour depending
on geostrophic wind flow
Inland frontal propagation
diminished by offshore
850 mb winds
greater than 10 m/s
(Kwiatkowski, 1999)
Does not always take
the coastline shape

9. Sea Breeze Front as Seen by Satellite and Radar
RU COOL Visible Satellite Imagery
NWS Doppler Radar
WSR 88-D
2002/08/17
18:11:00
Sea Breeze
Front
Upwelling

10. Summer upwelling Is upwelling 2nd?
El Nino!
Seasonal temperature
variation is
the primary signal.
Is upwelling 2nd?

11. Sea Surface Temperature from AVHRR Satellite
Atlantic City *
Tuckerton
Sandy Hook
New York
Trenton
Philadelphia
Newark
Belmar
IMCS
Coastal Upwelling
SW upwelling
favorable wind
wind
Upwelled
Water

12. Modeled Effect of Bathymetric Variability on Upwelling
1 m/s
current
velocity
Along shore
subsurface
deltas cause
upwelling to
be 3d, not 2d.
North
wind
Barnegat delta
LEO delta
Cape May delta
Song, et al., 1999

13. Regional Atmospheric Modeling System Case Studies
Model Specifications
Three nested grids
Grid 1 – 32 km resolution 34x34 points with 40 s time step
Grid 2 – 8 km resolution 50x50 points with 13 s time step
Grid 3 – 2 km resolution 90x106 points with 4 s time step
45 vertical levels with almost half of them below 2 km
48 hour simulation
Used both upwelling and non-upwelling SSTs (AVHRR)
Harrington radiation scheme
Mellor and Yamada subgrid turbulence scheme
NCEP Reanalysis data for model initialization
Study area in red

14. Sea Breeze Case Study: June 23, 2000
SST from AVHRR Satellite
SST used in RAMS simulation
June 23rd SSTs
SST composite technique as described in S.M. Glenn and M.F. Crowley, 1997.

15. 1400 UTC
2000 UTC 34 32 30 28 26 24 22 20 18
1400 UTC
2000 UTC 34 32 30 28 26 24 22 20 18
2000 UTC

16. Sea Breeze Case Study: July 5, 2000
Typical upwelling SST regime
vs.
Non-upwelling July 27, 2000 ocean surface
(“upwelling turned off”)
SST difference (July 5th – July 27th
July 5th SSTs
July 27th SSTs

17. Upwelling vs. Non-Upwelling SST July 5, 2000
2 m Temp (ºC)/Upwelling SST
2 m Temp (ºC)/Non-Upwelling SST
2 m Temp (ºC)
Sea Breeze front
5 – 10 km farther
inland during
upwelling SST
(upper left)
2300 UTC
2300 UTC
2300 UTC
Sea Breeze front
as shown by wind
vector plot
(lower left)
2 m Temp
Difference (ºC)
(lower right)
2300 UTC

18. Upwelling vs. Non-Upwelling SST
What can we get from better sea breeze forecasts?
More accurate temperatures for NWS
(at the coast and inland)
Savings to energy companies
and consumers
Marine wind forecasts
Accurate beach forecasts -> Tourism
More accurate forcing for
coupled ocean-atmosphere models
2 m temperature difference (ºC)

19. Future Work Case studies using a coupled ocean-atmosphere model
-Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) and WRF
Pollen and pollution dispersion within the NJ sea breeze
Use CODAR to determine the offshore extent of the sea breeze
Special thanks go out to: Luke Oman, Mike Crowley, Jim Eberwine,
Dale Haidvogel, John Wilkin, Hernan Arango, the rest of NWS
Mount Holly, and especially ALL of RU COOL
Research funded by: National Weather Service’s Cooperative
Program for Operational, Meteorology Educatioin, and
Training (COMET)
References:
Glenn, S.M., and M.F. Crowley, Gulf Stream and ring
feature analyses for forecast model validation,
J. Atms. Oc. Tech., 14,
Kwiatkowski, J., Observations and analysis of the New Jersey Sea Breeze.
M.S. Thesis. Rutgers University. 79 pp.
Song, T., D.B. Haidvogel, and S.M. Glenn, Effects of
topography variability on the formation of upwelling centers
off New Jersey: A simple theoretical model, J. Geophys. Res.,
106,