Abstract Using an atmospheric global spectral model, it is shown that the winter atmosphere in the midlatitudes is capable of reacting to prescribed sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in the northwest Atlantic with two very different responses. The nature of the response is determined by the climatological conditions of the winter regime. Experiments are performed using either the perpetual November or January conditions with or without the prescribed SST anomalies. Warm SST anomalies in November result in a highly significant anomalous ridge downstream over the Atlantic with a nearly equivalent barotropic structure; in January, the response is a statistically less significant trough. The presence of the SST anomalies also causes a northward (southward) shift of the Atlantic storm track in the November (January) cases. A diagnostic analysis of the anomalous heat advection in the simulations reveals that in the January cases, the surface heating is offset primarily by the strong horizontal cold advect...