by Capt. James Lodge

Summer Heats Up.
On Rutgers University’s website, the geostationary satellite link shows wonderfully colorful water temperatures of our sounds, inshore, and offshore waters. These are heated by the seasonal plumes coming in from the hot, red Gulf Stream.

Last week coastal water seemed to be warmer offshore, with close to 80 degree water at the 60 fathom curve, about 30 miles south of the Vineyard. This week, temps of the same plume are cooler. It’s fascinating to see the Gulf Stream as it approaches warm from the south. South and east of Nantucket, the ocean temps are in the 50s and graphically colored blue.

The influence out there, upon our rich fishing area named George’s Bank, is from the Labrador Current, bringing much colder water from Canadian climes.  These converging rivers of oceanic currents, the Gulf Stream and Labrador Current, merge right off our coast, giving us such changing weather patterns.

Fishing at Its Finest
These warm waters  bring the sport fish: tuna and dolphin (Mahi-Mahi kind, not Flipper), swordfish and sharks. Most dangerous sharks are either miles out in the ocean, and more common to the east’ard, where colder waters lie. 

Summer Weather Cycles
Low pressure areas are responsible for our bad weather. They are cyclonic, i.e. have a counterclockwise wind pattern, and travel right up our east coast, scooted along by the Gulf Stream.  Sometimes these lows get stopped by the cooling and slowing influence of the Labrador Current, and just set up over Georges Bank.

This is how we get our famous New England Nor’easters, when the counterclockwise turning air mass sits percolating by the warming and cooling currents, and lasts for days. Our prevailing summer weather is from a huge high pressure area that sits out in the ocean and gives us our southwest winds. It is called the Bermuda High and the clockwise rotation of winds around its center make to Gulf Stream send warm plumes over the continental shelf and to us.

Changes in the Night Sky
Above us, this approaching full moon is called the Buck Moon. Native Americans called it because male deer, the bucks, would start pushing out their antlers as a velvety fur. The Europeans called it the Hay Moon, as the first crop of hay could be harvested now.

Looking at our nightly waxing moon, one can see it increasing into a ‘D’, then into the full moon, rising later into the day. It will be full when it rises as the sun sets. The full moon always rises as the sun sets, then about one hour later each day.  The crescent moon is tapered at the ends. Ironically, ‘crescent ‘ comes from French‘croissant’ which means increasing, but when the moon is in the sky as a ‘C’, it 's 'decroissant,' or decreasing, in its last quarter.

 Capt. James Lodge owns and operates Atta Boy Charters and is a contributor to MVOL.com