Recent research has shown that projecting future drought risk is more confidently forecast by combining the influence of long-term climate measured by 10-200 CM soil moisture deficits and the effects of recent weather patterns implied in 0-10 CM soil moisture anomalies.

Several forecast models have dissipated El Nino and project either neutral ENSO or weak La Nina emerging during the North Atlantic tropical cyclone season. In previous years when El Nino started the year and dissipated mid-year tropical cyclone activity including numbers of hurricanes in the North Atlantic basin were above normal and sometimes excessive.

Pattern change in the U.S. especially featuring major precipitation events often is caused by presence of the Madden Julian oscillation or a tropical cyclone.

Modern-day El Nino episodes have a tendency to occur while many other parts of the global oceans are also warmer than normal. This observation is a large change from the previous strong El Nino episodes of 1982-83/1997-98 when most of the oceanic heat and influence on atmospheric climate was consolidated in the tropical East Pacific. Consequently, our understanding of El Nino climate rooted in the influence on the atmosphere by the 1982-83/1997-98 warm ENSO events is different for many regions.