Coldest ocean water temperature in decades recorded off San Diego County

Del Mar lifeguards patrol in waters that have been unusually cold lately.

UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography said a near-shore buoy in Del Mar recorded a 52.25 degree reading and other stations posted near-record numbers.

San Diego Union-Tribune

April 8, 2023 9:23 AM PT

The ocean temperature off Del Mar fell to 52.25 degrees this week, the lowest reading in San Diego County waters since UC San Diego began using a buoy system in the 1970s to monitor large areas of the U.S. coastline.

UCSD’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography said near-record low readings also were recorded this week at many other stations, including off Imperial Beach and Leucadia, where the temperature was 53.5 degrees on Wednesday, April 5.

“Our sea-surface temperature display shows cold temps everywhere in the (Southern California) Bight,” said James Behrens, who manages UCSD’s Coastal Data Information Program.

Scripps oceanographer Art Miller said in an online posting that the extremely low temperatures appear to be tied to the strong, anomalous surface winds that have been blowing over the ocean for the past week or so.

Gary Robbins

Gary Robbins has been a journalist for nearly 50 years and currently covers science and higher education for The San Diego Union-Tribune. He joined the paper in April 2010 after working for 25 years at the Orange County Register, where he was science editor. Robbins was born and raised in Maine and attended Northeastern University in Boston, graduating in 1978. He served as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT during the 2000-01 academic year and a science writer fellow at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts in June 2001. He can be reached at 714-642-5218.