A few days ago my curiosity got the best of me and I started looking at the current Gulf of Mexico Sea Surface Temperatures. While the GOM SSTs are only part of the fuel chain during Hurricane Season I like to glance at them now and then prior to the Official season starting.

I was somewhat startled when I looked at the 7 day average SST for April 10th,2012.
Since 1999, the current 7 day average image is the lowest/ coolest GOM SST image. With all of the weather Records being broken over the last 4 weeks I expected to find warm SSTs in the Gulf.
They aren't there.

See the attachment above for a contact sheet of the images. 1999 is the first image through to 2012.
The image with the black square is the 24th of August,2005. Just prior to Katrina. Basically the warmest the GOM has been in the last 10 years or so.

In viewing the full size images I see that the Temperature scale is NOT the same in all of the images. This year in particular it is 4 degrees Celcius cooler than last year. Apparently they are using a sliding scale... for some reason.

Images may be viewed at http://fermi.jhuapl.edu/avhrr/gm/index.html

April12,2012 7 day average SST_scale end at 32 C

April 12,2010 7 day average SST_scale end at 28 C

April 10,2005 7 day average SST_scale end at 30 C