The Madden Julian oscillation has anchored in the West Pacific during northern hemisphere summer but suddenly is forecast to shift to the North Atlantic tropics in early September causing the subtropics and tropics to gain rain producing tropical waves and possible tropical cyclones.

The combination of the positive phase of the Indian Ocean Dipole and approaching El Nino is likely to make a bad drought in Australia worse during spring into early summer.

Sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) patterns are a reaction to internal ocean dynamics and the long-term climate pattern and help to explain current weather and project future climate to 1-3 months. There are many regional SSTA patterns present now affecting in a dramatic way the global climate.

Close monitoring of the solar cycle intensity is required as the unusually lengthy and intense solar minimum occurring in 2007-10 followed by a weak solar maximum in 2012-14 is apparently being followed another (at onset) unusually weak solar minimum in 2018.