DELUGE: Winter Storm Hits Ocean City, New Jersey - Many Areas Submerged By Widespread Flooding! [VIDEO]

Floodwaters in New Jersey.

February 10, 2016 - NEW JERSEY, UNITED STATES - Down the shore it wasn't snow that people had to worry about - it was flooding.

Roads in Ocean City were flooded Tuesday. Many streets were impassable, but that's not a surprise to locals.

We found Bud Arcaini on 13th Street right on the bay checking on some houses to make sure they didn't get water inside.

Arcaini tells us, "New moon, high tide and the way the wind was blowing keeping everything in the bay. Water can't leave the bay with that wind coming out of the north, so this is what you get."

Lauren Perkins says, "This is higher than we get normally because there's a push from the northeast, but it's not uncommon to see this."

Not uncommon, but residents and business people say it's getting old.

Phyllis Casper says, "It's unsettling because you can't leave your house. So that's why I'm out early this morning so I can move my car and go back this afternoon."

"Obviously, there's no place to park and it cuts down on the customers," says Bob Farnsworth, who runs the Tuckahoe bike shop on West Avenue.

Part of Farnsworth's shop was flooded Tuesday. He's been repairing bicycles that got wet in the last storm.

He says, "Basically, saltwater and bikes don't mix very well. It gets into bearings, it gets into the spokes." The flooding situation was much the same in North Wildwood. The area around Chestnut and Delaware was submerged. Back bay flooding created a watery mess in a town still recovering from the storm that caused serious flooding two weeks ago.


WATCH: New Jersey street flooding.

Mark Reimet of Ocean City says, "It seems to be flooding in areas that didn't flood before. I don't know what's going on, whether there's been some sort type of change, but it's definitely deepened the normal areas but more so in areas that typically hadn't flooded."

The good news is, by Tuesday evening much of the flooding had receded and snow is not expected along the coast, so there won't be that added element to deal with. - 6ABC.

RATTLE & HUM: Loud Tremors And Booms Reported In Ocean City, Maryland - Earthquakes Ruled Out?!

February 07, 2014 - MARYLAND, UNITED STATES - Tremors that Ocean City residents reported feeling around midday Thursday did not come from an earthquake, seismologists said, but may have come from supersonic flights from Patuxent Naval Air Station.

"The data is very inconsistent with any kind of earthquake activity," Maryland Geological Survey Director Richard Ortt said. That was because the timing of the tremor's detection by various sensors did not match the time it would be expected to take for a seismic event to ripple through the Earth's crust, he said.

The source of the tremors remains unknown, Ortt said. Sometimes sonic booms, explosions or other blasts can be confused with earthquakes, he said.

Air station spokeswoman Connie Hempel said the Navy conducted two supersonic flights off the coast Thursday, though she did not know what time they were scheduled for.

Snapshot from Maryland Geological Survey
(Maryland Geological Survey / February 6, 2014

Residents of the beach resort town reported hearing a loud boom and feeling earthquake-like tremors shortly before noon.

"We have had reports that people felt tremors," said an Ocean City police spokeswoman, who estimated that the department had fielded more than a dozen calls as of noon.

She said the calls came in "from the whole length of Ocean City, just within the last hour or so" and there were no reports of damage so far.

The state geology agency worked with seismologists in Delaware, New Jersey, Virginia and Pennsylvania to study the tremors.


A U.S. Geological Survey earthquake monitoring website shows no earthquakes of at least magnitude 2.5 in the region recently.

Police were checking with the U.S. Coast Guard and other authorities to identify the source of the tremors and unusual sounds. A spokesperson for Dover Air Force Base in Delaware said it had no demolition or flights in the area.

"We are hearing reports of a possible earthquake in Ocean City, MD. That is unconfirmed at this time," the Maryland Emergency Management Agency said in a post on Twitter.

The disturbance was not felt by everyone. "Our police station is like Fort Knox, so I didn't feel anything really," the spokeswoman said.

The only earthquake on record in Ocean City occurred Oct. 15, 1928, according to the Maryland Geological Survey. The Delmarva peninsula was also among those areas up and down the East Coast to feel the 5.8 magnitude earthquake centered in Virginia on August 23, 2011, according to the USGS. - The Baltimore Sun.

STORM ALERT: Another American East Coast Storm - New Weather System Could Snarl Holiday Travel!

November 20, 2012 - UNITED STATES - After several days' respite, we will again be watching the waters just off the Atlantic Seaboard for the potential of another coastal storm. As has been the case with the last several storms near the East Coast, the computer forecast models have been showing a range of possible outcomes for this system, which will develop this weekend and reach its peak intensity during the first half of next week -- just as millions of Americans hit the road or the airport for Thanksgiving.

What can we say with confidence at this point? We can confidently predict that a storm will be spinning up off the Atlantic shores of the Southeast this weekend. Breezy conditions are likely at the coast, and showers will be possible from coastal Georgia into parts of the Carolinas and Virginia this weekend. Questions arise next week about where this storm is headed during the busy Thanksgiving travel period. Computer forecast models are in broad agreement that it will crawl northward over the western Atlantic, blocked -- or at least slowed -- by a strong bubble of high pressure over eastern Canada. The models are also in good agreement that this storm will not pull a Sandy and makea a left hook into the East Coast; in fact, they broadly agree on keeping the center of the storm over the ocean, but they vary quite a bit in how far offshore. The models also agree that there won't be much cold air feeding into this system. This means the chance for snow (as opposed to rain) from this storm is quite low.

Given what we know, we expect a long fetch of easterly winds over the western Atlantic. But as we will see, those model differences will have implications for the coastal impacts of this storm. So that's the critical question: Will this storm hug the coast or stay farther out to sea? Let's take a look at two of the possibilities for this low-pressure system. On one hand, the center of low pressure could stay on a more westerly track as it moves north, keeping it closer to the East Coast. In this scenario, rain would lash parts of the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast into those heavy pre-Thanksgiving travel days, causing wet roads, traffic delays, and complications at the airports. There's likely to be more of an onshore (easterly) component to the winds along the East Coast, increasing the threat of some coastal flooding, not to mention severe beach erosion from pounding waves. Furthermore, the winds would be stronger for a longer stretch of coast in this scenario. - NBC.

ANIMAL BEHAVIOR: Mass Stranding - Third Common Dolphin Dies in South Jersey, After Beaching in Stafford Township!

A common dolphin found stranded but alive Monday in Barnegat Bay died soon after it was removed from the beach, making it the third dolphin death in recent days. Two other dolphins died this weekend, one in the Delaware Bay in Lower Township, the other in the Venetian Bayou Lagoon in Ocean City.

Examinations have been scheduled for all three dolphins to determine whether their deaths are related to a mass stranding last month in Cape Cod, Mass., Marine Mammal Stranding Center Director Bob Schoelkopf said. The Stranding Center in Brigantine had tried to save the dolphin, Schoelkopf said. The Ocean City dolphin is believed to be a juvenile, perhaps the calf of a common dolphin seen swimming freely in the lagoon Friday. No dolphins were seen in the lagoon Monday. The dead animals were trucked to the University of Pennsylvania's School of Veterinary Medicine in New Bolton, Pa. A spokeswoman at the lab said getting results from the necropsies - the animal equivalent of autopsies - could take a week or more. The veterinary hospital treats large animals ranging from horses and cows to zoo elephants, spokeswoman Sally Silverman said.

Meanwhile, the Stranding Center is preparing for the possibility of more strandings. "It's not over yet," Schoelkopf said. "I imagine it's going to be an ongoing event. We have additional sightings of three animals this morning traveling through the Cape May Canal. They had some strandings in Rhode Island. The range of stranding events is spreading. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Delaware has them now." More than 160 common dolphins - an open-ocean species found off New Jersey year-round - have stranded off Cape Cod this year, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service. Most were found dead, but 40 were rescued and released into deeper water. Just what causes whales and dolphins to strand largely remains a mystery. Along with diet, disease and other factors, scientists are studying any correlation between military naval exercises and marine mammal strandings. "There's still a fight between the Navy and a lot of people over that," Schoelkopf said. "They know that sonar could be affecting dolphins, but the naval people say they weren't in that area so it wasn't us. And it's hard to prove differently." - Press of Atlantic City.

RATTLE & HUM: Mysterious Noise Phenomena - Something Shook New Jersey on Saturday, but Seismologists at the U.S. Geological Survey Detected Nothing?!

Floors shook, bottles rattled, bells jingled, and scores of New Jersey residents up and down the state cried "earthquake!" yesterday morning. Was this the state’s second rattler in four months?

People stand on the corner of Broad and Green streets in Newark after Newark City Hall
and other area building were evacuated after the 5.9-magnitude earthquake in August.

Despite more than 60 residents who claimed to have felt shaking yesterday morning, a spokesman for the U.S. Geological Survey said none of the seismometers stationed around the state picked up even a hint of trembling. "It’s not an earthquake," said geophysicist John Bellini, speaking from the U.S. Geological Survey’s Colorado office. "My guess would be it’s more likely thunder or sonic boom." New Jersey has been rocked this year by half a dozen extreme weather and geological events, including a 5.8 magnitude earthquake centered in Virginia that shook buildings across the Garden State in August. This time, the first-hand reports began streaming in around 10 a.m. yesterday from Egg Harbor, Cranbury, East Brunswick, North Brunswick, Trenton, Somerset, Edison, Plainfield, Piscataway, Iselin, South Plainfield and others, Bellini said.

At 11 a.m., Anthony Camaioni tweeted from his family’s dry cleaning shop in North Brunswick, "Yea I think it definitely happened again. #earthquake in #NJ The bells jingled in the store." Others posted on Twitter around the same time that they felt their homes sway and heard glass bottles clinking for between 10 and 30 seconds. Bellini pointed to a band of thunderstorms off the state’s coastline or covert activities at Fort Dix or McGuire Air Force Base in southern Jersey as possible explanations for what residents might have felt. A spokesman for the National Weather Service said its unlikely that even severe thunderstorms could make the ground feel as through it’s shaking.

Fighter jets used in drills near Virginia and North Carolina have caused sonic booms — the noise and vibration associated with traveling faster than the speed of sound — which can be mistaken for earthquakes, Bellini said. A spokesman for Fort Dix did not return calls for comment. Salvatore Saieva of Woodcliff Lake in Bergen County initially took to Twitter to report the earthquake to friends, but later said the military could be responsible for what he felt. "My experience could be explained by a sonic boom," Saieva wrote on Twitter. "Bottles rattled, but I didn’t feel anything shaking beneath me." - NJ.

It wasn’t an earthquake. But what was it? U.S. Geological Survey geophysicist Paul Caruso isn’t sure. “We received a number of reports that people felt something,” Caruso said from the National Earthquake Information Center in Colorado. “We don’t know what it was.” Local residents took to Facebook and Twitter to describe what they thought was an earthquake. “I felt it in Margate, thought i was having a stroke!” wrote Patti Fiore. “I think it was everyone’s imagination!” wrote Juanita Rivera. “Maybe it was God Bowling and he a gotta 7-10 Split?!” wrote Ocean City resident Kevin DeCosta.

Caruso has some theories as to what caused the shaking sensation, but at this point it’s merely speculation. “It could have possibly been a thunderstorm off the coast,” Caruso said. “A sonic boom, that’s another possibility.” Caruso said this sort of thing happens several times a year, usually off the coast of Florida. New Jersey has become more earthquake-conscious since August, when a 5.8-magnitude earthquake shook the East Coast. There would be no repeat Saturday — just some concern and speculation, as New Jersey residents struggled to figure out what made the ground shake. - Press of Atlantic City.

MASS ANIMAL DIE-OFF: Thousands of Fish on Ocean City beaches!

Thousands of small, partially processed fish washed ashore along the Atlantic shoreline from Lewes to Ocean City over several days, alarming visitors.

Thousands of menhaden washed up on the beaches in Ocean City; they appear to have been dead for a least a week, said Dawn Stoltzfus, spokeswoman for the Maryland Department of the Environment. The department says wind pushed the dead fish to the shore, she added. Stoltzfus said an estimated 100,000 fish were seen on the coastline. The dead fish may have come from the Delaware Bay, Stoltzfus said, but an investigation into where they came from and what caused the deaths is ongoing. Some of the fish were missing heads. Water quality doesn't seem to have been a factor since other fish species in the area appear to be fine, Stoltzfus said.

"At this point, it looks like a sort of one-time event that's finished because we aren't seeing any new ones appearing today," Stoltzfus said Monday. Throughout the weekend, beach resort residents and visitors traded news about sightings of the dead, headless fish. The incident prompted an angry call for enforcement action from the top beach safety officer at Rehoboth each. "I'm confident that things will be worked out, but it's a smelly annoyance," said Beach Patrol Capt. Kent Buckson, who said the headless, tailless fish were likely dumped or spilled from a commercial vessel. They appeared on the shoreline Saturday. Buckson said beachgoers had been warned not to touch the fish that started washing ashore by the hundreds shortly after 2 p.m. Cleanup crews were quickly called to clear away those that already had landed. City officials eventually dispatched a beach sweeper to comb the shoreline, with lifeguards clearing away visitors ahead of the machine. Bill Svolis, whose family owns Gus & Gus Place restaurant on the boardwalk, said the fishy wave caused little stir beyond the sand. "It's pretty weird," Svolis said, "but we haven't had any customers talking about it this afternoon." Buckson predicted that other resort beaches would be affected as the tides shifted. - Delmarvanow.