Forecasts call for August to open with a hot week, followed by more dog-day afternoons until month's end.
For Shore visitors, the irony is cruel: Go to the beach to escape hyperthermia - and risk hypothermia.
Coastal scientists and weather experts say the icy water and oppressive air are inextricably linked.
"The warmer summers have some of the coldest coastal ocean water," said David A. Robinson, a Rutgers University professor and the state climatologist.
The same persistent winds from the south and southwest that are yanking warm surface water from the South Jersey coast have blanketed the land with thick, tropical air.
The source of the winds is a large area of high pressure over the North Atlantic: the "Bermuda high," so called because it typically is centered near Bermuda. Winds circulate clockwise around high centers, so areas to the west experience south breezes.
"This is a very persistent southerly wind," said Scott Glenn, a Rutgers coastal scientist. South winds were reported in Atlantic City on 26 days in July, according to the National Weather Service.
Cold surf - the result of upwelling, in which chilled water rises to replace warm water at the surface - isn't unusual in South Jersey.
Summer water temperatures have plunged as low as 49, said James A. Eberwine, the marine specialist at the National Weather Service office in Mount Holly. An extreme cold-water outbreak off New Jersey in 1882 was blamed for killing 1.5 billion tilefish.
The difference this year is the duration. Farrell, who runs Stockton's Coastal Research Center, said he had seen nothing like it in at least 25 years.
