Аннотация:Purpose. The present paper is focused on reproducing the extreme polar low observed over the Bar-ents Sea in early January 1975, on the metocean hindcast data and on analyzing the upper sea layerresponse to the cyclone passage.Methods and Results. All the calculations are carried out based on the Marine and Atmospheric Re-search System for simulating hydrometeorological characteristics of the western seas in the RussianArctic (the Barents, White, Pechora and Kara seas). The main components of this system are the re-gional non-hydrostatic model of atmospheric circulation WRF (spatial resolution is 15 km) and thephysically complete three-dimensional σ-model of marine circulation INMOM (spatial resolution is2.7 km). The atmospheric reanalysis data and the results of previous studies are used. The polar lowproduced a severe impact on the central and eastern parts of the Barents Sea, namely, being stronglyinfluenced by the storm winds, the near-surface current velocities changed significantly. During astorm period in these parts of the Barents Sea, the drift component prevails over the tidal one. Thetidal component prevails in the shallow southern part of the Barents Sea even during the most extremestorm period. It is shown that a polar low can lead to increase of the sea surface temperature in theBarents Sea by more than 1°С.Conclusion. The sea surface temperature positive anomaly is formed by the dynamic processes asso-ciated with vertical mixing, upwelling in the western and central parts of the Barents Sea, the Ekmandrift and downwelling near the Novaya Zemlya coast. Contribution of the sea-atmosphere heat ex-change to formation of the surface temperature positive anomalies is negligible. On the contrary, inthe southern part of the Barents Sea and in the Pechora Sea, a significant surface temperature decrease (by almost 1.5°С) is observed during a polar low passing. This is a result of the sea upper layer cooling due to the heat transfer from the sea surface to the atmosphere.Keywords: Arctic seas, extreme storm, ocean circulation, sea surface temperature anomaly.Acknowledgements: The authors are grateful to S.K. Gulev, V.V. Ivanov, and G.K. Korotaev fortheir valuable comments while preparing the paper. The work was partly supported by the RussianScience Foundation (grant No 17-77-30001).