This blog probably spends too much time talking about the atmosphere, so to make up for it today, let’s look at what’s happening to the temperature of the ocean’s surface. And see if anything unusual is happening.
Let’s start with sea surface temperatures around North America yesterday (below). Sorry, all in °C. Remember that 10°C is about 50F, 20°C is about 68F, and 30°C is about 86F.
The eastern Pacific near the West Coast is cold (about 50F), with waters in central California a bit cooler than ours. You have to go to the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula to find water warm enough for comfortable swimming.
The East Coast is a study in contrasts. The water off the coast of New England is crazy cold (drops below 7C), while the warm Gulf Stream is found along the west coast of Florida, moving through the Carolinas and then northeast into the Atlantic .
There is a HUGE temperate contrast between the Gulf Stream and the cold water in the Northeast. The increase in sea surface temperature in the Northwest actually shows a surprising horizontal temperature change north of the Gulf Stream.
Look closely and you’ll see waves at the boundary between warm and cold water in the Atlantic and an intriguing loop in the warm water over the Gulf of Mexico (first image above). Water is very warm over the Caribbean and western Central America
Your next question is probably: is the current sea surface temperature pattern unusual?
To evaluate this, the next map shows the difference between yesterday’s sea surface temperature and normal conditions (also called SST figurative meaning).
Pretty close to normal off the Northwest coast. Several degrees colder than normal for California coastal waters. And almost normal on the west coast of Mexico. Much of the Gulf and Atlantic coasts are slightly above normal. Cooler-than-normal temperatures north of the Gulf Stream, this suggests that the Gulf Stream lies about a hundred miles south of its normal position.
The biggest story in sea surface temperatures is what’s happening in the tropical Pacific. Last year, a strong El Nino caused sea surface temperatures MUCH warmer than normal from South America, westward to the central Pacific.
But something important happened. The tropical Pacific’s surface waters are cooling rapidly, leading to cooler-than-normal waters in many locations (see map, with arrows showing you some of the most interesting spots).
El Nino is dead. Long live La Nina, its cold cousin!
