Tropical Pacific Drifting Buoys
Rick Lumpkin / Mayra Pazos, AOML, Miami
FEBRUARY 2019
During February 2019, 239 satellite-tracked surface drifting buoys were
reporting from the tropical Pacific. Similar to January, several drifters
indicated very strong (~40 cm/s) eastward anomalies near the equator at
160E-180. Elsewhere, the drifter array indicated that large-scale currents
were close to their climatological February strengths across the basin.
Some very strong westward anomalies were measured by isolated drifters in
the far eastern basin, but this may be associated with Tropical Instability
Wave activity rather than large-scale current anomalies.

FIGURE A1.1
a) Top: Movements of drifting buoys in the tropical Pacific Ocean.
The linear segments of each trajectory represent a one week displacement.
Trajectories of buoys which have lost their subsurface drogues are gray; those with
drogues are blue.
b) Middle: Monthly mean currents calculated from all buoys 1993-2010 (gray),
and currents measured by the drogued buoys this month (black) smoothed by an
optimal filter.
c) Bottom: Anomalies from the climatological monthly mean currents for this month.
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