Recap 2025: The most important extreme weather stories this year
2025 saw several extreme weather events all across the globe.
The year began with three wildfires that devastated large parts of the Los Angeles city and surrounding areas in the United States since January 7, 2025. These occurred due to rare meteorological conditions enhanced by global warming and consequent climate change, mainly due to a ‘hydroclimate whiplash’.
On the night of August 30, 2025, Chennai, one of India’s six metropolitan cities, experienced a spell of intense rain, especially between 10:00 pm and 12:00 am. The torrential rainfall in some areas was categorised as cloud bursts, according to the official definitions of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), according to the Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC) of the IMD in Chennai.
North India experienced catastrophic rainfall during the 2025 Southwest monsoon season due to an unusual mix of weather systems, including increased western disturbances and moisture-laden winds from the Arabian Sea.
The excessive rainfall caused by Cyclone Senyar across Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand and Cyclone Ditwah over Sri Lanka in the last week of November 2025 was made more intense by global warming along with natural climatic cycles such as El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), according to a study by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) consortium.
2025 is ending with a “winterless Christmas” as the United States and parts of Europe experience anomalously high winter temperatures.