extreme weather

Boya Lake Provincial Park in British Colombia, Canada at midnight.
WMO/Jason Salisbury

News in Brief 29 June 2021

29 June 2021
News in Brief
  • Pressure-cooker heatwave danger in Canada, UN northwest: WMO
  • Mali alert: rampant impunity for human rights abuses: Bachelet
  • Tigray crisis can be resolved, with aid access, agencies say
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3'34"
A vaccination campaign against COVID-19 is launched in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, with the vaccines received through the COVAX initiative.
© UNICEF/Ariette Bashizi

News in Brief 21 May 2021

21 May 2021
News in Brief
  • Gaza ceasefire can't mask destruction says UNRWA chief
  • WHO on 'real' COVID toll
  • 'Above normal' Atlantic hurricane season forecast
Audio -
3'37"
Scientists believe that climate change is causing an increase in extreme weather events.
NOAA/Jerry Penry

Climate Change indicators have continued unabated, warns WMO

22 April 2021
Interviews

Latest research from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) shows that climate change has not slowed down during the pandemic – and that action to reverse increasing greenhouse gas emissions, is more urgent than ever.

Ahead of the Leaders’ Summit on Climate convened by the United States on Thursday, here’s WMO meteorologist Laura Paterson, outlining the main findings of the UN agency’s State of the World Climate 2020 report, speaking to UN News’s Daniel Johnson.

Audio -
6'41"
A 10-year-old child helps her family look for water in southern Angola. Failed rains in the first three months of 2019 decimated crops and livestock, affecting about 2.3 million people.
UNICEF/Louzada

Shift needed from what weather will be, to ‘what the weather will do’

13 October 2020
Climate and Environment

Extreme weather and climate events have increased in frequency, intensity and severity as a result of climate change, hitting vulnerable communities disproportionately hard, a new UN report has revealed, calling for greater investment in effective early warning systems. 

More than 78,000 acres of forest in the Sierra mountains in California has been lost due to wildfires.
San Francisco Fire Department

Climate change: Record northern heat, fuels concerns over US wildfire destruction

15 September 2020
Climate and Environment

The northern hemisphere experienced its warmest August ever, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Tuesday, amid searing conditions that have contributed to devastating wildfires on the west coast of the United States.

As a result of a tropical storm in El Salvador, thousands of people have lost their livelihoods and become food insecure.
WFP/David Fernandez

Storms, coronavirus pose ‘double threat’ for children in Central America and Caribbean – UNICEF

3 August 2020
Health

Across Central America and the Caribbean, the more than 70 million children impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic could soon face another threat – catastrophic hurricane storms, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned on Monday. 

A medical assistant examines a seven-year-old girl in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.
© UNICEF/Bashir Ahmed Sujan

News in Brief 23 June 2020

23 June 2020
News in Brief
  • Extreme weather ‘record’ likely in Arctic Circle: WMO
  • 600 million South Asian children at risk from COVID-19, says UNICEF
  • UN migration agency appeals for funding to help 460,000 people in central Sahel
Audio -
3'10"
Aerial view of melting glaciers on King George Island, Antarctica. This latest report of an Arctic temperature more typical of the Tropics comes a few months after the Argentine research base, Esperanza, on the northern tip of the Antarctic peninsula, set a new record temperature.
UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

Extreme weather ‘record’ likely in Arctic Circle, says UN weather agency WMO

23 June 2020
Climate and Environment

Reports that temperatures in a Russian town in the Arctic Circle likely reached a record 38C (100.4F), last weekend, have been approved by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) pending final verification, it said on Tuesday.

Protesters gather in Union Square in New York City to demand justice and to protest racism in the United States following the death of George Floyd while in police custody.
UN News/Antonio Lafuente

News in Brief 5 June 2020

5 June 2020
News in Brief
  • Demonstrators in streets should protect themselves and others from COVID-19
  • May confirmed as warmest on record, CO2 levels hit new high despite COVID economic slowdown
  • Taking oceans for granted must stop for all our sakes: world’s fastest yachtswoman
Audio -
4'17"
Late September sunrise as seen from Paalijärvi observation tower in Alajärvi, Finland. May 2020, was the warmest on record, UN weather agency WMO has confirmed.
WMO/Tapio Niemi

May confirmed as warmest on record, CO2 levels hit new high despite COVID economic slowdown

5 June 2020
Climate and Environment

Last month was the warmest May on record and carbon dioxide levels also hit a new high despite the economic slowdown from COVID-19, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Friday, in an urgent appeal for Member States to renew their efforts to tackle climate threats.