The impact of ocean coupling on landfalling hurricanes is studied using a coupled hurricane-ocean model with idealized atmospheric and oceanic conditions. We focus here on coastal sea surface temperature responses and their effects on hurricanes during landfall. We find that given the ocean thermal stratification, the hurricane-induced sea surface cooling is nearly independent of the ocean depth as long as the ocean is considerably deeper than the mixed layer. After the storm center moves inland, the near-surface processes around the storm core area are influenced by the sea surface cooling behind and on the right side of the storm track via reduction of near-surface entropy advection into this area. The impact of ocean coupling is generally limited to the early times after landfall and nearly disappears after the hurricane center reaches about 200 km inland. ¿ 2001 American Geophysical Union