outer banks- cold water?
 

I am planning a week in Nags Head the last week of August. Last week, my husband heard a radio news item (on a generally reliable all news station) about the ocean water being very cold this year from the Outer Banks(high 50s!) north up the Atlantic Coast. The guess was that it is due to the heavy amount of rain we have had this spring and summer, that somehow the ocean water has "turned up" the water from the depths and that is very cold for swimming.
Has anyone else heard about this, or even better, experienced it? I don't want to take the kids all the way there for freezing water in August!

Yes it is true. On the South Carolina coast where our water temperature should be in the mid eighties, it is only in the mid to upper seventies. I know it doesn't sound to cold but when I dive, I will not dive sans wetsuit or shortie unless the water temp is at least 83 degrees. Check out NOAA.gov (I think) for bouy and marker water temps.

We spent a week at OBX in July at Duck. Water was cold some days and warm others - depending on the wind direction. Yes - colder than it normally is in that area - but on the warm days - it was great! By late August it should be warmed up even more. There are lots of tide pools for the kids to play in that get quite warm.
We are used to the beaches at Cape Cod and Maine - so NC beaches are still warm to us!

Checking the water temps out today, it seems we are in a pocket of warm water. Water temps hit 83 but below us in Georgia water is mid 70s. It is a strange summer.

the strangest!