Summer’s over, and it ends with a weather threat that would ruin any weekend of the year. Sigh.
Before Hurricane Hermine arrives to do whatever damage it will -- and here's hoping it's minimal -- did you have fun frolicking in the sand (if you were able to get down the shore during the unofficial summer season) or atop sizzling concrete (if you weren’t)? The Jersey Shore Town Power Rankings algorithm abacus certainly hopes so.
Normally, we'd have waited until the summer shore season ended, but the forecast leaves us sharing the rankings a few days early.
We’ll judge not what happened down by the Atlantic Ocean in the past week (which works out really well for Avalon, which may well have slipped in the rankings thanks to a snake infestation that they’d covered up, and for Long Beach Island and its wayward trash trucks).
Rather, we’ll crunch the summer-long numbers to tabulate final rankings, highs and lows for each resort town and overall winners and losers (per the number of times each town achieved No. 1 and No. 16 status).
Here’s hoping you have a lovely autumn, winter and spring. We’ll regroup here Memorial Day Weekend 2017 to talk shore-based definitive standings.
Seven days ago, the list was as follows:
16. Long Beach Island (-7)
15. North Wildwood (+1)
14. Atlantic City (+1)
13. Cape May (-1)
12. Cape May Point (+1)
11. Stone Harbor (-1)
10. Longport (+3)
9. Margate (-1)
8. Brigantine (-6)
7. Avalon (-2)
6. Wildwood (even)
5. Wildwood Crest (+5)
4. Ventnor (-1)
3. Strathmere (-2)
2. Sea Isle City (+2)
1. Ocean City (+6)
Brian Hickey/PhillyVoiceEarly morning soccer on the beach in Brigantine, New Jersey.
Highlight: Alexa Brunetti, a former Miss Teen New Jersey, brought national attention to her hometown by appearing on the VH1 show “Dating Naked."
Lowlight: Those jacked shaved-headed bros and their Donald Trump flag.
Brian Hickey/PhillyVoiceAlexa Brunetti, who won the Miss Teen New Jersey USA pageant in 2009, will appear on the VH1 program 'Dating Naked' in August 2016. The Brigantine resident worries how people in her small hometown will react when they see the show, but is 'comfortable in my own skin.'
Lowlight: Our Angelo Cataldi has an arch enemy, and his name is Murray Wolf of the Avalon Beach Patrol, an evil person who was featured in a puff piece this summer. Smdh.
Highlight: Sea Isle City started atop the list, dropped and returned to the top by summer’s end. Such consistency is admirable.
Lowlight: Armed robberies are not a good look to bolster tourism.
Brian Hickey/PhillyVoiceThe author, the late Charlie Dawg and friends watch the sun set at the end of 91st Street in Townsend's Inlet (Sea Isle City) sometime during the late 1990s.
By the numbers
As you can see, the top three held true to form. North Wildwood and Wildwood plummeted while Brigantine, Long Beach Island and Wildwood Crest made substantive gains over the course of the summer. (Good, bad and good for them, respectively.)
Nine of the 16 resort towns reached top-spot lofty heights over the course of the summer. They are (with number of weeks in parenthesis):
1. Sea Isle City (8)
2. Strathmere (2)
3-9. Atlantic City, Brigantine, North Wildwood, Ocean City, Stone Harbor, Wildwood and Wildwood Crest (1)
Just six towns found themselves in the basement over the tourist season. They are::
1. North Wildwood (7)
2. Atlantic City (3)
3-4. Wildwood and Long Beach Island (2)
5-6. Avalon and Longport (1)
With that, the summer shore-town rankings initiative has come to an end. And remember, people, if the weather gods make it necessary to flee for home before enjoying a full three-day weekend, heed its warnings.
