This article reviews the exploration of the climate dynamics of Brazil's Nordeste in the course of a century. The drought-prone and semi-arid northern Nordeste of Brazil experiences a short rainy season around March-April, when the interhemispheric gradient of sea surface temperature (SST) in the tropical Atlantic is weakest and the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) reaches its southernmost position in the course of the annual cycle. The recurrent Secas (droughts) have a severe socio-economic impact. During drought years, the interhemispheric SST gradient in the tropical Atlantic is steep and the ITCZ stays far North, while the waters of the eastern equatorial Pacific tend to be anomalously warm. Based on the extensive diagnostic exploration of the circulation mechanisms of interannual climate variability, empirical methods have been developed for the forecasting of the Nordeste rainy season. These have been applied in the real-time prediction of seasonal rainfall anomalies throughout the last decade of the 20th century.
