Principal components analysis was used to investigate interannual sea surface temperature (SST) variability in the South-East Atlantic from 14 to 34°S over 23 years. More than 75 per cent of the non-seasonal SST variability was accounted for by the first three principal components. Principal component 1 (PCI) demonstrated region-wide warming and cooling trends, centred within the main shipping lane. Major "events" revealed by this component included a strong but fairly short-lived warm event in 1963, a cold period from 1969 through 1971 and a warm period from 1972 to 1975. PC2 isolated SST behaviour at the extreme southern sites which contrasted with that farther north. PC3 was dominated by events in the upwelling regions north of 30°S where warm and cool events differed somewhat in timing and amplitude in comparison with those offshore. Furthermore, this component revealed a warm event in 1967/68 and a pronounced and sustained cool event from 1981 to 1983. Major warm events were accompanied by reduction of average equatorward wind speed and cool events by its augmentation. Heat flux anomalies contributed to the generation and maintenance of SST anomalies offshore. Although local changes in wind forcing accompanied warm and cool events, more remote forcing from the tropical Atlantic was crucial to the evolution of nearshore warm and cool events north of 30°S.