Rain in the forecast may make Friday the only real chance for people to enjoy the beach over Memorial Day weekend, and the season’s opening stretch was already looking bleak in places like Asbury Park, New Jersey. On Friday, the temperature hovered around 60 degrees, with winds of 15 to 25 mph blowing off the Atlantic Ocean.
That left the beach in Asbury Park empty after being packed earlier in the week during a pre-summer heat spike. The boardwalk was still busy, but it was peppered with people bundled up against the chill. Briana Louise said the wind was brutal. “It’s really cold out here. The wind. The wind is insane,” she said. “We’re here to celebrate Sarah’s birthday,” she added, explaining that she and her group had brought seats for the sand but could not use them. “We came to see the sunrise, and this is not. It’s not giving, beach summer,” she said. “We brought these to sit on the sand. Relax, chill. But it’s not happening.”
Farther down the coast, the mood was different. The boardwalk in Coney Island was packed Friday night, showing how quickly crowds can shift when weather changes from one stretch of shoreline to another. Soraya Perez said she had come north for the Jersey Shore expecting something closer to the classic summer scene. “I left Florida for the Jersey Shore, and I was really expecting the full experience. You know, the beach, the vibes,” she said. “And it’s not giving that, but hopefully at least one of these days while I’m here, we can really like tap into.”
For businesses that depend on the holiday kickoff, the forecast is more than a nuisance. Memorial Day weekend is a crucial start to the season at the Jersey Shore, where a few bad days can weigh heavily on a short stretch of months when owners must make most of their money. Matthew Sarrel said Ruby’s Bar and Grill depends on a 13-week window to turn a profit, and rough weather on a holiday weekend hurts small businesses. “It hurts you. There’s no question about it. When you’re a small business, you know every day matters. Not having great weather, especially on a holiday weekend, hurts you. There’s no ifs, ands, or buts about it. You do what you can, you hope for the best, you know you can’t control the weather,” he said.
The contrast was hard to miss: one day earlier, the beach had been crowded under warm weather, and on Friday it sat nearly empty while people huddled on the boardwalk. That is the reality of a seasonal shoreline heading into the unofficial start of summer. At the Jersey Shore, the crowd does not just follow the calendar. It follows New York Weather, the wind and the rain, and by Friday the forecast had already decided who got a beach day and who had to wait.
