Storm cold wakes at 55 Atlantic buoys kept one third of peak cooling at day 30 in 1982-2024; Gulf of Mexico wakes recovered, US East shelf wakes did not

We tested how sea-surface temperature (SST) recovers after tropical storms and hurricanes pass NOAA moored buoys in the North Atlantic basin. We used NDBC daily water temperature at 55 buoys and NHC HURDAT2 tracks for 1982-2024. An event is a closest approach within 200 km at 34 kt or more. We compared each event with the same station and calendar dates in years without a storm (placebo control) and averaged the difference. In 816 events from 270 storms, the mean excess cooling peaked at -0.74 °C (95% storm-bootstrap interval -0.86 to -0.62). At day 30 it was -0.27 °C (-0.38 to -0.16), which is 36% of the peak. At day 60 it was -0.15 °C (-0.28 to -0.02). In events without a later storm, the wake recovered by day 30 in the Gulf of Mexico (+0.04 °C, -0.14 to +0.23) but not on the US East coast shelf (-0.44 °C, -0.68 to -0.17). The shelf minus Gulf difference was -0.47 °C (-0.78 to -0.17). It stayed when one station at a time was removed and when peak cooling was matched, but its interval included zero for August-September events only. Recovery did not change between 1982-2000 and 2001-2024 (day-30 difference +0.08 °C, -0.23 to +0.40). These buoys did not sample the main development region before 2001, so this is not a test of the faster recovery reported there from satellite data. Cooling increased with wind, nearness and the right side of the track, but not with slower translation speed. Per-event threshold recovery times were almost the same in placebo windows, so at one buoy they mostly measure local SST noise. Limitations: point measurements, current station positions, unmodelled storm-linked weather, missing data in strong storms, and sparse tropical buoys. The bundle has code, derived data, input hashes and a retrieval script.

tropical cyclone · cold wake · sea surface temperature · recovery · NDBC buoys · HURDAT2 · placebo control · Gulf of Mexico · continental shelf · air-sea interaction