In mid-February 2025, southern Botswana and eastern South Africa were hit by heavy rainfall, sparking severe flooding across the region. The floods claimed at least 31 lives, including 22 in KwaZulu-Natal (Mhlophe-Gumede, 2025), near Durban, and at least nine in Botswana’s capital, Gaborone, amongst them six children (Government of Botswana, 2025). At least 5,000 people … Continue reading “Increasing extreme rainfall and rapid urbanisation, major drivers behind Gaborone’s deadly floods”
Extreme rainfall
When Risks Become Reality: Extreme Weather In 2024
When Risks Become Reality: Extreme Weather in 2024 is our annual report, published this year for the first time.
Extreme downpours increasing in southeastern Spain as fossil fuel emissions heat the climate
From October 29-30, 2024, eastern Spain was hit by exceptionally heavy rainfall.
10 years of rapidly disentangling drivers of extreme weather disasters
In the summer of 2003, a devastating heatwave killed more than 70,000 people across Europe.
Conflict, poverty and water management issues exposing vulnerable communities in Africa to extreme floods that are now common events because of climate change
The rainy season from July to September 2024 was marked by extremely heavy and sometimes unprecedented rainfall in large parts of the Sahel region, leading to catastrophic flooding in Sudan in August and in Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon in September. In total more than 2000 people lost their lives and millions were displaced.