Ocean Beach, NY Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 0.4 miles northeast of Ocean Beach, NY?
USGS's shoreline-change data puts this stretch, 0.4 miles northeast of Ocean Beach, NY, at 0.26 feet of erosion a year on average, a long-term rate for this specific ~3.5-mile section, not one storm's damage. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 2.6 feet over the last decade.
What this reading actually covers
USGS surveys the coast in transects spaced a few hundred feet apart; this page groups the nearest ones into a single ~3.5-mile reading for the stretch closest to Ocean Beach, NY, rather than showing one arbitrary line. Segment center: 40.65, -73.15. Survey years: 2007-2009, method LRR, from USGS's New England / Mid-Atlantic shoreline-change assessment. That's how current the data is here, real, but not a live feed, since a shoreline survey is a major undertaking, not an annual check-in.
What 0.26 ft/yr means over time
Run 0.4 miles northeast of Ocean Beach, NY's 0.26 ft/yr rate forward 25 years and it implies about 7 feet of further retreat, assuming nothing changes, which is exactly the assumption a seawall or nourishment project exists to break.
How solid is this number
88 transects feed this segment's number; 100% of them individually measured retreat. The published margin on this reading runs ±0.18 ft/yr. Sorted from fastest erosion to fastest growth across all 1211 measured segments nationally, this one lands at 431. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. For scale: Boothville, LA, 1155 miles away, ranks 40 of 1211 nationally for erosion, 6.36 ft/yr, many times over this stretch's own rate. Fire Island, NY, 2.7 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, reading slight erosion at 0.78 ft/yr.
Ocean Beach, NY on the source map: try the Coastal Change Hazards Portal, zoomable well past this page's ~3.5-mile grain.