Paper 4 



SST anomaly or other evidence. 



Storm tracks *jere almost entirely north of AONx with only one 

 storr crossing the coast of Maine. The tracks curved northward 

 between Greenland and the Faroes^ and none crossed the British 

 Isles or western Europe. 



Ju^^ - The Guif Stream this month closely followed the 180-m 

 depth contour to Cape hatteras^ slightly inshore of its climato- 

 loqical mean position. Northeast of the Cape it followed the 

 mean track to 70inl /■ then meandered slightly downstream. The 

 cyclonic eddy at 55Ny 73W moved 2 deg westward during the month. 

 There was much mixing of Slope and Shelf Waters during the month. 

 Early in the month tremendous meanders and eddies developed^ but 

 all were apparently resorbed by the Gulf Stream. 



All SST's increased seasonally during the months but the warm 

 anomalies diminished- A strong warm spot reached a +5C anomaly 

 at 41N30'/' 64U30V with smaller positive anomaly values north of 

 39tvJ from 55W to the American coastline. The rest of the Atlantic 

 area was near normal for the month. The Gulf of Mexico remained 

 anoma lously cold. 



Storm activity was below normal this 

 tracked west of the British Isles. 



months and most storms 



Over the Fourth of July weekends masses of dead fish were 

 reported off Sandy Hookr NJ . Fisheries investigations 

 (Armstrong^ Paper 17) determined the cause to be an anoxic water 

 massy brought about by natural weather conditions^ which expanded 

 southward to Atlantic City, NJ ^ by mid-Augustr and by mid- 

 September covered half of the Middle Atlantic Bight. Estimates 

 were that up to 50% of the commercial fish stocks might be lost 

 this year due to this phenomenon. 



^uQust ~ The Gulf Stream this month was fully seen by satellite 



imagery west of 60W. It flowed very smoothly along its 



historical mean track for the month to 67Wx then made a dip to 



the south followed downstream by a larger one to the north. 



Two small cyclonic eddies persisted through the month/^ both 

 moving about 150 km southwe stward . A large (250 km diameter) 

 anticyclonic eddy at 39n30*^ 67W originated on 25 August as a 

 pinched off meander. A minor warm core eddy at about 38N30'r 

 72W30' shows on the ART isotherms as well as in the satellite 

 analysis. The central ocean waters continued to warm at the 

 surface this month/' but SST's over the continental shelf dropped 

 due to tropical storm activity. In 1975^ by contrasts seasonal 

 warming persisted through August. Significant cold anomalies/^ on 

 the order of -1.50/^ appeared in the Middle Atlantic Bight. 



47 



