Stuck on the Queensland coast in the rain - so l had a look at the Oz Met forecast site and yours - both of which I like - in order to see what is happening near the Equator. The Oz forecast shows some 30C water developing towards the dateline, yours shows warm anomalies developing even further east north of the Equator. As 30C is enough for a lot of deep atmospheric convection why doesn't the NOAA site also show absolute values. (21C water warming by 6C is unlikely to be as important as 28C water increasing by 2C). Some plots of regions of deep atmospheric convection or equivalent rainfall would also be useful. On a second point you mention warm water moving east along the Equator. I know this may be contentious but I suspect that this usually happens after the normal trade wind has dropped because the near surface current on the Equator is dominated by the wind. If this is correct something causes the trades to drop and this in turn causes the reversed current on the Equator - not the other way around as is normally implied. Best regards, David.