extreme weather

The 2023 Carnival disaster in São Paulo: an all time record for rainfall in Brazil

Paulo Hader May 22, 2023

Photo credit: Image by Mati Mango from Pexels (Pexels licence)

In February 2023, Brazil experienced its largest rainfall event on record, which devastated the northern coast of the state of São Paulo. This event caused landslides, floods, and numerous fatalities, making it even more tragic than previous disasters in the region, which already have been elaborated on in another blog post. The situation highlights the urgent need for effective emergency manageme ...[Read More]

Unravelling the Complex Drivers of Wildfires in the Era of Climate Change

Joana Parente and Marj Tonini February 27, 2023

Photo credit: Tasnim News Agency (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License)

In the last decades, the strength of climate change has been evident across the globe in many weather and climate extremes occurrences, including heatwaves and droughts. Those events are involved in all fire stages and influence all aspects of the fire regime [1]. Climate change is driving unprecedented wildfire in the Mediterranean region The Mediterranean region is a climate change hots ...[Read More]

Cyclone Fani: A success in weather forecast and disaster preparedness

Giulia Roder August 20, 2019

This Copernicus Sentinel-3 image captured on 1 May 2019 shows Cyclone Fani. In the image, the width of the storm is estimated to be around 700-800 km. (Image Credit: ESA - CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)

Hurricane, cyclone and typhoon are different terms for the same weather phenomenon: torrential rain and maximum sustained wind speeds (near centre) exceeding 119 km/hour (World Meteorological Organization https://public.wmo.int/en). The terminology depends on the region (e.g. in the western North Pacific, they are called typhoons; in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea they are named as cyclones ...[Read More]

Hot topic for a hot summer: extreme weather and climate events in the ANYWHERE project – A Pan-European Platform for Multi-Hazard Early Warning and associated Impacts

Jonathan Rizzi August 5, 2019

Photo source: http://anywhere-h2020.eu

In this post, I have the pleasure to interview Dr.ir. Henny A.J. van Lanen. He is Associate Professor in the Hydrology & Quantitative Water Management Group of Wageningen University and he has been involved in several EU projects. Further, he is involved in many international groups or networks: Coordinator of the European FRIEND programme (EURO-FRIEND Water, Flow Regimes from International Ex ...[Read More]