The 1982-83 warm episode in the California Current

The Warm Episode (El Nino) of 1982-83 has produced elevated steric height (geopotential anomaly) along the coast of California and Baja California. Fifty percent of the stations observed during a survey in February and March had the greatest steric height observed for this season for the entire 33 years of California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) observations. Where it occurred onshore, along central California in early February, this anomalous height was balanced by a strong countercurrent. Along Baja California in late March the greatest steric height was offshore and hence produced a strong equatorward flow. These conditions may not have been synoptic. An offshore shift in the subsurface thermal anomaly between January and May suggests a reversal of the flow within this time frame.