Weather, scarce employees affecting start of ‘18 season

After watching summer seasons come and go here for 45 years, I tend to trust my gut. This one feels like it's off to a little slower start. Memorial Day weekend was solid, but not crazy. And I'm OK with that.

Traffic moved; there were snarls at the times and places we expect them to be. If we're not having traffic congestion on Memorial Day weekend and into the solid summer period between mid-June and Labor Day, then we are in trouble.

A bartender at Woody's in Dewey told me that business is OK, but he said May and June are always fluky so he isn't concerned. Kenny at Holly Lake Campground said his Memorial Day weekend numbers were up over last year. Others told me they were about on pace.

But Carol Everhart at Rehoboth Beach-Dewey Beach Chamber of Commerce confirmed my overall sense.

"I'm wondering whether it's the weather," I asked Carol on Tuesday.

She looked out the window when we were talking. "What's that big shining thing up in the sky? Yes, definitely, it's the weather, and a few other things. But weather always plays a big role in the play we put on here. Weather's a star, and it hasn't been shining. That's taking a toll. We're getting one rainy episode after another."

Max Vito, a long-range meteorologist at AccuWeather, said May this year was unusually warm and wet. "Sussex County's temperatures were in the 70s for most of the month but also with several warmer days. Overall, the month was six degrees warmer than an average May."

But how about the rain?

"It was probably one of the higher rainy Mays we've had in several years. Rainfall - at seven inches this May - was just about double what we get in this area in an average May," said Vito. He noted that from May 12 through May 19, we had eight straight days with at least 1/10 of an inch of rain each day, many with more than that.

Those looking for relief from the pattern of storms coming across the country may not want to read this next part. Vito said he expects June to also be wetter than normal. "We see frequent storms coming in June. There's an active pattern of fronts that will be moving through on into July with lots of thunderstorms and lightning. Then we see that severe activity backing off in August.

"I don't think this will be remembered as a very hot summer," said Vito. "We're not seeing many long stretches of 90-degree days. But it will probably be a little more humid than what we're used to."

He said the jet stream stationed over the northern Rockies will send northwest-flowing fronts our way, which will bring ends to hot stretches.

And when those fronts collide with warm air coming off the Gulf of Mexico, the result, he thinks, will be above-normal precipitation from the mid-Atlantic region to the gulf.

He noted that on the day we spoke, Monday, we had already had 1.1 inches of rain in June. "So far it's rained every day this month."

Occupancy rates flat

Everhart said occupancy rates for motels and hotels are slightly down this year. For years, she has been tracking occupancy on a weekly basis. "I track the highest number of rooms occupied for one night each week. It's usually Saturday night. In the period from January through the end of April this year, the total of all those highest weekly nights came in at 37,638. That's down about a thousand from last year for the same period when the number totaled 38,638."

She said in recent years, she has been tracking Wednesday nights too. "What's interesting is that in 2017 for the January through April period, the Wednesday totals came in at 19,044 rooms while this year it's running up at 19,506."

Occupancy numbers are solid, she said, but they have been flat for two years.

Before that she was seeing growth every year. "We've added more hotels and motels - the numbers should have kept growing."

Everhart pointed a finger at short-term internet rentals: people renting rooms in their homes through a wide variety of sites. "It appears they are having an impact on hotel and motel occupancy."

On the bright side, she said recent rainy weekends have actually bumped up food sales. "They don't care if it's raining."

Downtown in Rehoboth Beach, she said perennial parking issues are still being mentioned by businesses as a problem.

And, she said, businesses are having trouble finding employees.

"We have about a thousand international students working in the area this summer," she said. "In the past it's been up in the thousands - as high as 4,000. I remember when they were sleeping in Grove Park because they couldn't find housing. Sgt. O'Bier came to me and said, 'Carol, we have to do something about this.' That's when we started our International Student Outreach Program - to help students with housing and meals. It's now spun off into its own nonprofit organization, but housing continues to be an issue. And getting visas is also a problem. We've been working with Sen. Carper and others to try to get visas issued earlier in the year so these kids can get housing lined up earlier."

She also noted there are fewer and fewer young American students available to fill summer jobs. "I don't know if it's just that students are better off than they used to be, but it's been that way for years. There are lots of jobs, but not enough workers."