It’s been an odd summer.

There have been plenty of sunny days, but no truly severe, long-lasting heat waves. And the county’s coastal waters – especially the surf zone – has rarely sparkled with bioluminescence, the pretty blue-green light produced by little living marine organisms known as dinoflagellates.

The dinoflagellates are found in the plankton blooms that sometimes appear in local waters during late spring and summer. Such blooms are associated with lots of sunlight and with winds out of the northwest, which cause upwelling, or the movement of colder, deeper water to the surface.

“We didn’t get much wind out of the northwest this year,” says Sean Collins, founder of Surfline.com of Huntington Beach. “There’s been lots of high pressure, which stabilized things. The ocean warmed up in a pretty consistent way in late spring, and things have stayed that way. The lack of northwest winds have allowed the water to warm up to deeper levels.”

At the moment, the temperature of local waters ranges from 66 to 70 degrees, which is typical for this time of year. Low pressure is moving into Southern California today. But forecasters aren’t expecting big gusts of wind out of the northwest.”

Late news: O.C.-area earthquake activity at half the normal level

More Sciencedude

chemiluminescence, where the light-producing chemical reaction occurs inside an organism.

Posted in: Ain't that interesting? • Climate and weather news • Coastal marine life |

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.