Seasat A Satellite Scatterometer measurements of surface wind components were made under normal weather conditions with unsurpassed space and time resolutions during August and September 1978. Longitudinal distributions of the monthly mean zonal component were markedly different in each ocean: in the Pacific the zonal profile resembled a semicircle; a linear change occurred in the Atlantic, and quasi-uniform values prevailed in the Indian Ocean. Only in the Atlantic and Pacific was the prevailing direction of the zonal component westward. In the Pacific the monthly mean standard deviations increased towards the west. This indicated that the larger day-do-day wind variability observed at the western islands compared to moored buoy measurements in the eastern region was a natural phenomenon and not caused by islands. The average monghly mean slope of the wave number spectra throughout the 550- to 2200-km wavelength band was -1.7, which was approximately equal to the -5/3 power law associated with turbulent motions. That the spectra levels of the zonal wind, but not the meridional component, were substantially different in each equatorial ocean represents an enigma. Largest spectral values occurred in the Atlantic where variances were nearly 10 times greater than in the Pacific, which contained the smallest values. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1989