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Ocean variability, and its effects on U.S. marine flshery resources in 1975, is summarized. Also included is a collection of data products and contributed papers focusing on the impacts on fisheries resources of ocean variability. The emphasis is on large scale, both in time and space, environmental processes, the variations of index properties, and the consequent modulations of fisheries responses. A conseguence of the increased eddy days in summer and fall 1975 would be an increase in Slope Water volume. This would be reflected in the position of the Shelf Water/Slope Water front. Along all bearing lines from Casco Bay 1U0 to Cape Eomain 140 (Gunn, Section 12), the Shelf Water /Slope Water front was shoreward of its 1974 position, with an average difference of 12 km. In July and again in September, Slope Water covered 40ô f Georges Bank. The maximum coverage in 1974 was 17^. The spawning success of herring was apparently much reduced, and by 197 p 5i §st Coast -The pattern of SST ' s during the past two years along the U.S. Pacific coast (Fig. 2.5) was virtually identical, but 1975 was a degree or two cooler throughout. The cycle of warming and cooling was essentially the same both years except for October at Astoria, OE, where cooling reached a maximum of 4C/mo in 1974. mere over eastern Virginia, extreme eastern West Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania, and southern New York. Storm totals exceeded 10 in (26 cm) along some of the eastern mountain slopes, triggering major flooding on the Chemung, Susquehannah, Potomac, and Shenandoah Fivers (Hetert 1976). This excess flow continued into October, but volume returned to normal by the end of the year. 23 Section 2 2.3 SEA SURFACE TEMPERATDBE ANOMALIESŜ hips of many nations, including U.S. Navy and merchant vessels, routinely make surface water temperature observations at sea as part of normal weather observations. The NMFS Pacific Environmental Group has access to these real-time weather reports received by teletype by the U.S. Navy Fleet Numerical Weather Central. These weather reports are available globally on magnetic tape. This section presents monthly maps of numeric values of SST and its anomaly from a long-term mean (1948-1967) for three areas along the United States coasts (Appendix 2.2) . These areas include the waters near the East Coast in the northwest Atlantic (20N-46N, from the coast east to 60W) , near Alaska (45N-63N, from the coast west to 180W), and near the West Coast (20N-50N, from the coast west to 150W) . Similar SST monthly mean anomaly maps for the Atlantic area were presented by McLain (1976) for 1974. The maps presented in Appendix 2.2 partially duplicate SST anomaly maps available elsewhere: Atlantic maps published in gulf stream by the National Weather Service, and Pacific maps published in Fishing Information, Southwest Fisheries Center, NMFS, La Jolla, CA 92038.These maps differ from those presented here in various respects.The aulfstream maps give numeric values of temperature and anomaly as do the maps presented her...