The end of winter stratificaiton within the cold cyclonic trough of the Weddell gyre near 60¿S between 5¿E and the Greenwich meridian is resolved with the Mikhail Somov data set. The temperature maximum of the Weddell Deep Water (WDW) is, for the most part, less than 0.5¿C, but warmer cells of WDW are found. These warm WDW cells have temperature, salinity, and oxygen properties similar to the WDW characteristic of the Weddell gyre inflow, which is situated to the southeast of the Mikhail Somov study region. The warm WDW cells are accompanied by domes in the pycnocline of 40 m amplitude over the surrounding pycnocline, while deeper isopycnals are depressed. Anticyclonic shear below the 27.38 &sgr;-&thgr; isopycnal within the warm WDW cells is compensated by the cyclonic shear associated with the pycnocline dome. The pycnocline domes are exposed to about 50% greater entrainment by the turbulently active winter mixed layer, relative to the regional entrainment rate. This entrainment can significantly erode the warm cells in a single winter season, introducing excess heat and salt into the mixed layer. While the heat is lost to the atmosphere, the excess salt is not necessarily compensated by increased fresh water introduction. It is hypothesized that the warm WDW cells within the Weddell gyre trough are derived from instability within the frontal zone which extends from Maud Rise to the northeast, separating the Weddell warm regime from the cold regime. Greater than normal injection of warm WDW cells into the Weddell gyre trough would increase the surface salinity, which would trend to destablize the pycnocline, increasing the probability of deep convection and polynya events.