The New York Bight is the geological identification applied to a roughly triangular indentation, regarded as a

bight The word is derived from Old English ''byht'' (“bend, angle, corner; bay, bight”). In modern English, bight may refer to: * Bight (geography), recess of a coast, bay, or other curved feature * Bight (knot), a curved section, slack part, or loo ...

, along the Atlantic coast of the United States that extends northeasterly from

Cape May Cape May consists of a peninsula and barrier island system in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is roughly coterminous with Cape May County and runs southwards from the New Jersey mainland, separating Delaware Bay from the Atlantic Ocean. The so ...

Inlet in New Jersey to

Montauk Point Montauk ( ) is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the Town of East Hampton in Suffolk County, New York, on the eastern end of the South Shore of Long Island. As of the 2020 United States census, the CDP's population was 4,318. The ...

on the eastern tip of Long Island. As the result of direct contact with the Gulf Stream along the coast of North America, the coastal climate of the bight area is temperate.

Geography

The bight is formed by the roughly right-angled intersection of the generally north-south Atlantic coast of New Jersey and the approximately east–west southern coast of Long Island at the mouth of the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

. The New York Bight Apex is the area including and between the Hudson River

estuary An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environm ...

and the

Raritan River Raritan River is a major river of New Jersey. Its watershed drains much of the mountainous area of the central part of the state, emptying into the Raritan Bay on the Atlantic Ocean. History Geologists assert that the lower Raritan provided t ...

estuary extending 6–7 km of the coast, and it includes

Raritan Bay Raritan Bay is a bay located at the southern portion of Lower New York Bay between the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey and is part of the New York Bight. The bay is bounded on the northwest by New York's Staten Island, on the west by Per ...

and the

Lower New York Bay Lower New York Bay is a section of New York Bay south of the Narrows (the strait between Staten Island and Brooklyn). The eastern end of the Bay is marked by two spits of land, Sandy Hook, New Jersey, and Rockaway, Queens. The waterway b ...

Weather

The geography of the bight has long been of major concern to

meteorologist A meteorologist is a scientist who studies and works in the field of meteorology aiming to understand or predict Earth's atmospheric phenomena including the weather. Those who study meteorological phenomena are meteorologists in research, while t ...

s in the study of

tropical storm A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Dependi ...

patterns along the eastern coast of North America. These geographical characteristics of the area are among the primary reasons that, despite its northerly latitude, the

New York Metropolitan Area The New York metropolitan area, also commonly referred to as the Tri-State area, is the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass, at , and one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. The vast metropolitan area ...

is considered a high danger zone for storm-generated ocean-water surges. Specifically, in the presence of a hurricane off the coast of New Jersey, the easterly cyclonic winds along the northern edge of the storm could drive a strong surge to the west, laterally along the southern coast of Long Island and straight into

. The angular bend of the New Jersey coast would leave little outlet for the surge, leading to widespread flooding throughout

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, especially along the southern coast of Staten Island and

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. Examples of the effects of this phenomenon are the

1893 New York hurricane The 1893 New York hurricane, also known as the Midnight Storm, was a powerful and destructive tropical cyclone that struck the New York City area in August 1893. First identified as a tropical storm on August 15, over the central Atlantic Ocean, ...

, in which storm surges of up to were reported, and

Hurricane Sandy Hurricane Sandy (unofficially referred to as ''Superstorm Sandy'') was an extremely destructive and strong Atlantic hurricane, as well as the largest Atlantic hurricane on record as measured by diameter, with tropical-storm-force winds spann ...

in 2012.

Geology

The sea floor of the New York Bight consists largely of continental shelf. It includes the offshore Hudson Canyon, an undersea

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in ...

submarine canyon A submarine canyon is a steep-sided valley cut into the seabed of the continental slope, sometimes extending well onto the continental shelf, having nearly vertical walls, and occasionally having canyon wall heights of up to 5 km, from c ...

that was formed by the Hudson River during the

ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gre ...

s, when the sea levels were lower. The bight includes major shipping channels that access New York Harbor.

Wind power

The

Bureau of Ocean Energy Management The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior, established in 2010 by Secretarial Order. The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) states: "...the outer Continental Shelf is a v ...

(BOEM) is a federal agency responsible for determining offshore areas where wind farms may be built on the

Outer Continental Shelf The Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) is a feature of the geography of the United States. The OCS is the part of the internationally recognized continental shelf of the United States which does not fall under the jurisdictions of the individual U. ...

. In March 2021, reports appeared that the Biden administration is considering giving priority designation for offshore wind projects to the New York Bight. BOEM sells leases to qualified bidders. The waters in New Jersey and New York have been leased to private concerns for the development of US offshore wind farms. The first lease auctions were held in February 2022 for 5.6 gigawatts of power capacity and annual energy production of 19.6 TWh, for a total of $4.37 billion, with one area going for over one billion dollars.

References

{{Coord, 40.094882, -73.248596, format=dms, display=title Landforms of New Jersey Landforms of New York (state) Hudson River Bights (geography)

Geography

Weather

Geology

Wind power

See also

References