Big sunny weekend for the Jersey Shore

OCEAN CITY, N.J. - Until Wednesday or Thursday, Jim McMahon had planned to spend the Memorial Day weekend at home with his family in Pennsylvania, maybe perfecting his barbecue skills and doing a little yard work.

But when the weather forecast became the perfect recipe for a beach getaway - hot and sunny with a little humidity mixed in - McMahon, of Warrington, Bucks County, decided to forget the backyard and packed up the family minivan and headed to the Jersey Shore.

"And we've just been having the time of our lives," said McMahon, 37, who said he checked his family of four into the pink beachfront Port-O-Call Hotel on Friday for a two-night stay but decided instead to stay for three. "The great weather has been nonstop."

And so it went, up and down the coast from Asbury Park to Cape May: With temperatures hovering in the 80s throughout the three-day weekend, the beaches, boardwalks, hotels, motels, restaurants, and amusements were jammed, providing an unexpected boost to businesses in a still jittery local economy that depends heavily on tourism - and the weather.

"It almost feels like it's the Fourth of July," said Michele Gillian, executive director of the Ocean City Regional Chamber of Commerce, noting the large crowds that she said started pouring in to town on Thursday.

"We've had many Memorial Day weekends in the past that were rainy and chilly and people are shivering in sweatshirts on the boardwalk, but not this year. This has been a remarkable weekend for Ocean City, and I'm sure for everywhere else at the Shore," Gillian said.

Gillian said the biggest fear among tourism folks in Ocean City this weekend wasn't the weather, but a $400 million bridge-replacement project under way along the Route 52 Causeway, one of the main arteries in and out of the resort. With two lanes inbound and two outbound, officials said they saw few problems during the arrival of weekend visitors. But some locals and visitors said they were concerned about possible traffic delays on the ride home Monday after a gridlock situation was created by the volume of traffic headed out of the resort into Somers Point on Sunday night.