The Climate Of The Eastern Seaboard
Eastern Seaboard: The East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, the Atlantic Coast, and the Atlantic Seaboard, is the coastline along which the Eastern United States meets the North Atlantic Ocean. The coastal states that have a shoreline on the Atlantic Ocean are, from north to south, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.
Maps Of Eastern Seaboard
The Eastern SeaBoard (ESB) of Australia has long been recognized as a separate climate entity. Using the latest gridded observations from the Bureau of Meteorology, a definition of the spatial extent of the ESB is proposed. It appears that, while this area has recorded below-average rainfall over the last 12 years, the ongoing deficiency is not record-breaking in historic terms.
This contrasts with record-breaking droughts across large parts of inland, eastern Australia. The lesser severity of ongoing rainfall deficiencies in the ESB, compared to the rest of the region, is linked to the different impact of observed changes in regional surface pressure and, in particular, changes in the position of the sub-tropical ridge. It is also observed that while tropical modes of variability in the Pacific and Indian oceans are known to influence the climate of eastern Australia, that influence appears very weak and not statistically significant across the ESB. Finally, some issues relevant to future rainfall projections for the ESB are discussed. It is argued that providing reliable climate projections across this climatic region is a difficult challenge.
Eastern Seaboard States
The place-name “East Coast” derives from the idea that the contiguous 48 states are defined by two major coastlines, one at the western edge and one on the eastern edge. Other terms for referring to this area include the “Eastern Seaboard” (“seaboard” being American English for coast), “Atlantic Coast”, and “Atlantic Seaboard” (because the coastline lies along the Atlantic Ocean).
The fourteen states that have a shoreline on the Atlantic Ocean are, from north to south, the U.S. states of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. In addition, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia border tidal arms of the Atlantic (the Delaware River and the Potomac River, respectively). The states of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, (via the Gulf of Mexico) as well as the territories of Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, and Navassa Island (the latter only bordering the Caribbean Sea) have Atlantic coastline but are not included in the definition.
The Eastern Seaboard consists of the original 13 Colonies all of which face the Atlantic (although three of their four “offshoots,” (Vermont, Maine, West Virginia, and Kentucky) do not. (That is all except Maine.)
It was the “board” or foundation from which America sprang. Until we reached the “Continental Divide” in the Rockies (late in the 19th century), all ocean-bound traffic would head for the “seaboard” (or Gulf Coast), which “merges” into the Atlantic, past Florida.
The United States also has a “west coast” of course, but it has nothing of the historical significance of the “eastern seaboard.” To a lesser extent, this is true of the Gulf Coast, which did not become a factor until the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, and whose importance was soon “undermined” by the Erie Canal across New York State in 1825, which effectively connected the Great Lakes to the Atlantic.
Map Of Eastern Seaboard USA
Average monthly precipitation ranges from a slight late fall (November) maximum from Massachusetts northward (as at Portland, Maine), to a slight summer maximum in the Mid-Atlantic states from southern Connecticut south to Virginia (as at Wilmington, Delaware, and Norfolk, Virginia), to a more pronounced summer maximum from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, southward along the Southeastern United States coast to Savannah, Georgia. The Florida peninsula has a sharp wet-summer/dry-winter pattern, with 60 to 70 percent of precipitation falling between June and October in an average year, and a dry, and sunny late fall, winter, and early spring.
Although landfalls are rare, the Eastern seaboard is susceptible to hurricanes in the Atlantic hurricane season, officially running from June 1 to November 30, although hurricanes can occur before or after these dates. Hurricanes Hazel, Hugo, Bob, Isabel, Irene, Sandy, and most recently Florence are some of the more significant storms to have affected the region.
The East Coast is a low-relief, passive margin coast. It has been shaped by the Pleistocene glaciation in the far northern areas from New York City northward, with offshore islands such as Nantucket, Block Island, Fishers Island, the nearly peninsular Long Island and New York City’s Staten Island the result of terminal moraines, with Massachusetts’ unique peninsula of Cape Cod showing the additional action of outwash plains, besides terminal moraines. The coastal plain broadens southwards, separated from the Piedmont region by the Atlantic Seaboard fall line of the East Coast rivers, often marking the head of navigation and prominent sites of cities. The coastal areas from Long Island south to Florida are often made up of barrier islands that front the coastal areas, with the long stretches of sandy beaches. Many of the larger capes along the lower East Coast are in fact barrier islands, like the Outer Banks of North Carolina and Cape Canaveral, Florida. The Florida Keys are made up of limestone coral and provide the only coral reefs on the US mainland.
What is considered the Eastern Seaboard?
Eastern Seaboard, also called Atlantic Seaboard, a region of the eastern United States, fronting the Atlantic Ocean and extending from Maine in the north to Florida in the south.
What states are in the eastern seaboard?
Highest Point On Eastern Seaboard
The region, in the social sciences, a cohesive area that is homogeneous in selected defining criteria and is distinguished from neighboring areas or regions by those criteria. It is an intellectual construct created by the selection of features relevant to a particular problem and the disregard of other features considered to be irrelevant. A region is distinguished from an area, which is usually a broader concept designating a portion of the surface of Earth. Area boundaries are arbitrary, established for convenience. Regional boundaries are determined by the homogeneity and cohesiveness of the section.
Regions may be nodal, defined by the organization of activity about some central place (e.g., a town and its hinterland, or tributary area), or uniform, defined by the homogeneous distribution of some phenomena within it (e.g., a tropical rainforest).
Regions may be defined in terms of single or multiple features or in terms that approach the total content of human occupancy of an area. The most common features in social science are ethnic, cultural, or linguistic (Provence), climatic or topographical (the Tennessee Valley), industrial or urban (the Ruhr), economic specialization (the Cotton Belt of North America), administrative units (standard government regions in Great Britain), and international political areas (the Middle East).
The concept of region is currently used in the analysis, planning, and administration of many national and international public programs. Regionalism, or regional consciousness, the ideological correlate of the concept that develops from a sense of identity within the region, is important in many historical, political, and sociological analyses.
