It might be close to the middle of meteorological fall, but for many parts of the United States, it has felt more like summer. Scientists have linked recent record warmth to a warm blob of water in the northern Pacific Ocean that, at one point in September, covered almost 3 million square miles, roughly the size of the contiguous U.S.
A marine heat wave occurs when sea surface temperatures rise above 90% of normal for the region, typically 2 to 5 degrees warmer than average.
"That doesn't sound like a lot when you're over land, but when you're over water, it makes a big difference," AccuWeather senior meteorologist Paul Pastelok told Time magazine.
During September, the massive marine heat wave, also known as the "warm blob," stretched nearly 5,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean from near Japan to the West Coast of the U.S. to become the fourth-largest marine heat wave on record. At its peak, parts of the Pacific this fall were as much as 9 degrees above normal.
Scientists believe the anomalously warm water is helping to drive some of the record warmth seen this fall in the U.S. For many parts of the country, it has seemed like summer has spilled over into autumn. This week, states as far north as Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine set record highs. In the past 30 days, over 1,800 record high temperatures have been set in the U.S., nearly nine times the number of record lows.
The warm blob's influence on weather in the U.S. is an example of a teleconnection. That's when weather phenomena that happen in one part of the planet have significant implications somewhere else. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration describes teleconnections as "significant relationships or links between weather phenomena at widely separated locations on Earth, which typically entail climate patterns that span thousands of miles."
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Forecasters believe the marine heat wave's influence could last beyond fall, impacting storms this winter. "If this marine heat wave holds in the eastern Pacific, some of these storms early on in the fall, late in early, winter season could be pretty strong and produce heavy mountain snows and heavy rainfall," Pastelok added.
Our overheating planet is supercharging marine heat waves, increasing their size, duration, and frequency, according to NOAA. In addition to fueling summer-like temperatures well into fall, extended marine heat waves stress coral reefs, damaging the vital link between coral and the algae inside them. Without that algae, corals turn white and can die.
"Large marine heat waves have occurred each of the last six years (2019-2024), all typically beginning during the spring in the far offshore region of the open North Pacific, impacting the U.S. West Coast during the fall, and finally terminating during late winter," according to NOAA's Blobtracker. "Of the last six years, five of these were the largest heat waves on record for the eastern North Pacific since monitoring began in 1982."
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