Tropical Storm Jose leaves rough surf along Jersey coast

The Jersey Shore is still feeling some effects from Tropical Storm Jose.

While the storm stayed far out at sea, it churned up the waters along the New Jersey coast — and it’s still too dangerous to take a dip in the ocean.

“It’s not during the peak of the storm generally that people go out,” said Jon Miller, a coastal research professor at Stevens Institute of Technology. “It’s as the storm subsides, that’s when the waves die down a bit and makes it seem a little bit safer.

“People venture out, and that’s when they get themselves into trouble. So we’d really like to see people stay out of the water.”

Miller said the ocean could become calmer by the weekend unless another stormcomes our way.

“It’s a pretty scary situation out there. The waves are such that I think that most people will be scared out of the water, which is a good move,” he said. “If you do go in, it’s going to be extremely dangerous. We get rip currents, and then you’ve also got waves larger than you expect.”

New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Robert Geist said the engineered beaches and dune projects along the coast performed as expected and helped to prevent damage from the storm.

“We’re seeing that the event has already caused minor to moderate levels of sloped erosion with several reaches of scarped beach and/or done erosion at the hot-spot locations,” Geist said. “That’s because the surf heights are ranging for 3 to 8 feet — with greater heights possible in several locations.”

Jose is likely to be beneficial in the long run, said Stewart Farrell, who directs the Coastal Research Center at Stockton University. It pushed sand toward the shoreline, helping to build up the beaches.