According to NASA, solar cycle 25 began last September as solar minima ending the solar cycle 24 was completed. We’re currently on the uptick in sunspot activity as solar cycle 25 begins to strengthen. The latest NASA forecast indicates solar cycle 25 will peak around 2025 at sunspot number 120.

A strong Madden Julian oscillation shifts east into the equatorial Atlantic/Africa sector and weakens. The heat release pole ward warms the northern latitude mid-atmosphere and the declining latitudinal thermal gradient should slow the jet stream making trough/ridge patterns more likely to occur.

The Evaporative Demand Drought Index (EDDI) examines how anomalous the atmospheric evaporation demand is for a given location and across a time period of interest according to NOAA. Atmospheric evaporation demand is often referred to as “the thirst of the atmosphere”. The timescale of this index can vary to capture drying dynamics that themselves operate at different timescales.

Dr. Nate Mantua, PDO Expert at the NOAA/NMFS Southwest Fisheries Science Center reports that the March 2021 Pacific decadal oscillation index was -1.17 which represents moderate-to-strong cool phase. During March the -PDO regime present since early last year intensified to the strongest level during this 14-15 month-long cool regime.