Atlantic, VA Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 3.8 miles southeast of Atlantic, VA?
Nothing alarming measured 3.8 miles southeast of Atlantic, VA: whatever shift USGS's transects picked up here is too small to call reliably one way or the other, which this site reports as "no significant trend" rather than forcing a direction.
What this reading actually covers
Atlantic, VA is the nearest named place, 3.8 miles away, to a ~3.5-mile stretch of coast USGS has surveyed - the reading below covers that whole stretch, not a single property in it. Segment center: 37.88, -75.44. The survey behind it runs to 2007-2009, in USGS's New England / Mid-Atlantic assessment, using the LRR method. Shoreline surveys aren't repeated every year, so this is the most recent long-term measurement USGS has published for this coast, not a live reading.
How solid is this number
This reading comes from 21 individual transects averaged together, 57% of which measured erosion rather than growth. Uncertainty on this specific number: 1.21 ft/yr either side. The unadjusted figure here, -0.2 ft/yr, would place it 503 of 1211 if ranked directly - but an unreliable rank isn't a useful one, which is exactly why "no significant trend" is the headline instead. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. Hogans Corner, WA sits at national rank 1205 for growth (6.05 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 2520 miles from here. 1 miles away, Atlantic, VA is the nearest other measured stretch: moderate erosion at 1.68 ft/yr.
One address near Atlantic: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal zooms past this stretch to the underlying map.