Real-time tropics info
NOAA OISST, September 2018

Navigation

The content presented on this webpage is made possible by NOAA, which is funded by U.S. taxpayer dollars appropriated by Congress. Despite no laws being passed by Congress to amend that spending, NOAA is one of many federal agencies being decimated by workforce cuts. Hundreds of firings took place on 27 February 2025. NOAA was already understaffed, and these cuts will further limit their ability to serve the public.

Note 1: NCEI websites were offline for weeks due to Hurricane Helene's devastation in Asheville, NC, and the surrounding region. Their infrastructure was restored to the point of providing data on 15 October 2024.

Note 2: NOAA data may no longer be freely available depending on decisions made after 20 January 2025. If we lose free access to OISST (and other critical data sources provided by NOAA), these plots will cease production.

You're welcome to freely use images marked 'kouya.has.arizona.edu' with attribution. Please follow guidelines for linked materials according to their host institutions and agencies.



regional SST time series

These plots show area-averaged sea surface temperature (SST) from the daily NOAA optimum interpolated SST (OISST) dataset. Black line depicts the 1991-2020 long-term average. Thin gray lines correspond with individual years from 1982 through 2022. 2023 is plotted in red. 2024 is plotted in orange. 2025 (so far) is plotted in blue.

Dashed box on inset map denotes region for area averaging. Anomalies are computed relative to the daily 1991-2020 mean. Click any image to reach the full-sized file. Updated around 1600 UTC for the previous day assuming no delays in SST data. (Note: not updated on February 29 during leap years.)

Status: most recent available file from NCEI is for 19 Apr 2025.


Sectors:  

 



 

 

Data source: NOAA PSL OISST



Regional SST values on 19 Apr [°C]:

1991-2020    2025    anomaly
North Atlantic19.3119.56+0.25
tropical Atlantic24.9324.86-0.07
Gulf of Mexico24.2024.67+0.47
Caribbean Sea27.1327.68+0.55
Atlantic MDR25.7125.87+0.16
eastern ENP26.4526.38-0.07
western ENP25.1225.25+0.13
western North Pacific27.9728.63+0.66
North Indian Ocean29.5129.91+0.40
South Atlantic20.5220.90+0.38




regional SST anomaly time series

These plots show SST anomalies, or the difference between the given date's SST and that date's average value (shown by the black line in the regional SST time series provided above). Thin gray lines correspond with individual years from 1982 through 2022. 2023 is plotted in red. 2024 is plotted in orange. 2025 (so far) is plotted in blue.

Dashed box on inset map denotes region for area averaging. Anomalies are computed relative to the daily 1991-2020 mean. Click any image to reach the full-sized file. Updated around 1400-1430 UTC for the previous day assuming no delays in SST data. (Note: not updated for February 29 during leap years.)

 

 



 

 



Additional ocean monitoring resources



Special requests