The progression of fall sea surface temperatures for the months of July through December are shown in the left hand set of panels. Higher SSTs appear as warm shades whereas low SSTs appear as cool shades. The right hand set of panels show exceptional anomalies of SST, those tending to exceed plus or minus one quarter of a standard deviation of the overall SST for the field. This type of anomaly tends to highlight high SSTs in an area, the red shades, and SSTs well below the average in an area, the blue shades.  The progression of fall cooling was advanced compared to most years, thus, with the exception of the distribution of SST in October along the Middle Atlantic Bight, cool anomalies dominate the Northeast Shelf. The exception to this was the warm conditions that persisted in the Middle Atlantic Bight area during October. Georges Bank was either near the climatological mean or below average temperature during the six month period. The Gulf Maine only saw above average temperatures in October, and those warm conditions were limited to the eastern portion of the Gulf.