Extreme Weather

It is a condition where the weather event is significantly different from the average or usual weather pattern. The examples you can find to describe this situation are severe storms, heavy rainfall and floods, droughts, heat waves, and wildfires. When this happens, it affects people’s daily activities. In the worst situation, it can increase accidents, disturb the economy or even destroy areas that are affected.

Extreme weather is usually an anomaly. This means that the occurrence of this event is actually rare. However, there can be human factors behind this. Human activities like burning fossil fuels, deforestation, and industrial processes produce greenhouse gases. It leads to warming the planet and disrupting natural climate systems.

What are 5 examples of extreme weather?

The most common situations you might find are hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, heat waves, and flash floods. They have characteristics like unusual intensity or duration, sudden or unpredictable onset, significant impact, and tied to climate patterns. Depending on the types, those events can be separated into meteorological, hydrological, and climatological events. Meaning that the causes of each extreme weather are different. 

Moreover, it can be different from each place because it depends on the geographical vulnerability. In the US, there is a high frequency of tornadoes due to the Tornado Alley located in the centre of them. Meanwhile, in Southeast Asia, it is vulnerable to typhoons and monsoon flooding. For more insight, here are some cases and explanations about the events:

Hurricanes

Also known as a tropical cyclone, it is an intense tropical storm. This extreme weather started to form over warm ocean waters due to a combination of atmospheric and oceanic conditions. When it happens, the winds can exceed 150 mph (240km/h), causing widespread destruction when they make landfall. It is capable of toppling trees, destroying homes, and causing power outages. 

From the torrential rains that hurricanes brought, it leads to severe flooding. In particular, in low-lying coastal areas. Other than that, this type of event can cause erosion. In another case, this extreme weather can cause a storm surge. There will be a sudden rise in sea level due to the storm’s pressure and winds. 

Tornadoes

As one of the most dangerous extreme weathers, tornadoes are violently rotating columns of air that extend from a thunderstorm to the ground. Even though the size is smaller than hurricanes, it is deadlier since the speed can reach up to 300 mph and last for a few minutes. It has the capability to destroy nearly everything in their path. 

Blizzards

This extreme weather is a combination of snow and wind that creates dangerous whiteout conditions. Blizzards can last up to three hours. The characteristics of this event are strong winds, low visibility, and heavy snowfall. It usually has cold air, moisture in the air, upward air movement, and strong winds at least 35 mph.

Heatwaves

It is a prolonged period of excessively hot weather along with high humidity. This extreme weather can last for two or more days. It affects many things like health, agriculture, infrastructure, and the environment. This event happens due to specific atmospheric conditions that trap heat near the Earth’s surface.

The main causes of this are high-pressure areas in the atmosphere, prolonged sun exposure, lack of air movement, urban heat island effect, and dry soil and drought conditions. When this extreme weather happens, people are going to get heat exhaustion, heat strokes, and dehydration. Infrastructure is going to increase AC demand, cause road damage, and transportation disruptions.

Flash flood

In this extreme weather, it is an intense flood that occurs within minutes to a few hours of heavy rainfall or another water source overflow. The difference from regular floods is they develop over days. Meanwhile, flash floods are rapid and unpredictable, making them extremely dangerous. The causes of this event are heavy rainfall, urbanisation, steep terrain, dry soil, dam or levee failure, and melting snow or ice dams.