2021's most impactful weather moments from around the world
From powerful typhoons in the West Pacific to unprecedented heat waves and wildfires in northwestern Canada, there was no shortage of dramatic global weather events in 2021.
By
Mary Gilbert, AccuWeather meteorologist &
Adam Douty, AccuWeather senior meteorologist
Published Dec 31, 2021 5:02 PM EDT
|
Updated Dec 31, 2021 5:06 PM EDT
New Zealand and Australia celebrated the New Year as the clock turned hands at midnight, ushering in 2022.
Thanks to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, 2021 was yet another year where the everyday lives of people around the globe were anything but normal, and Mother Nature certainly followed suit.
From powerful storms to historic flooding and unprecedented heat waves and wildfires, adverse weather led to even more chaos in an ever-changing time. As residents of the United States can attest, there was no shortage of dramatic weather events over the past calendar year. Here's a look back at some of the most significant weather events from elsewhere around the world in 2021.
Just days after the new year began, an unusual weather pattern allowed a potent storm to spring forth and take aim at the Iberian Peninsula. This storm was given the name Filomena by the Spanish Meteorological Agency (AEMet) right before it brought bone-chilling conditions and the largest snowfall in decades to portions of Spain.
For the first time since its creation, AEMet issued a red alert, the highest on its warning scale, for snow for the Madrid area as a result of Filomena. As the punishing storm unleashed its fury, an estimated 13 inches (33 cm) of snow fell across Madrid, with reports of up to 24 inches (60 cm) in areas just outside the city.
AEMet confirmed Filomena's record-breaking snowfall -- it was the largest event the city had seen in 50 years, when around 8 inches (20 cm) fell in Madrid with up to 12 inches (30 cm) in surrounding areas in 1971.
A woman tries to remove the snow from her car during a heavy snowfall in downtown Madrid, Spain, on Jan. 9, 2021. A persistent blizzard blanketed large parts of Spain with 50-year record levels of snow, halting traffic and leaving thousands trapped in cars or in train stations and airports that suspended all services as the snow kept falling. (AP Photo/Andrea Comas)
Record-cold also converged on the region as a result of Filomena. A new record low temperature for the entirety of Spain was recorded amid Filomena when the thermometer read 32 below zero F (35.6 below zero C) at Vega de Liordes at the Picos de Europe National Park near Leon in northern Spain.
Madrid also had a brush with record cold when the mercury plummeted to 9 F (13 below zero C). This fell just shy of breaking the January record low temperature of 4 F (-15.6 C) set in 1945, according to AEMet.
Ultimately, at least four deaths were attributed to Filomena.
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As summer arrived, a deadly heat wave overtook much of southwestern Canada and the northwestern United States. During the last week of June, heat warped infrastructure, pushed cooling equipment to the limits and ultimately claimed hundreds of lives.
High temperature records were shattered on both sides of the border, but there was one Canadian town that bore the brunt of the heat. The village of Lytton, located in the province of British Columbia, broke the all-time Canadian high-temperature record not once or twice, but three times in the span of three days.
The stretch of record-setting warmth began on Sunday, June 27, when the town reached 116 F (46.6 C). The record was broken again on Monday, June 28, with a high of 118 F (47.8 C) and yet again on Tuesday, June 29, with an astonishingly high temperature of 121 F (49.6 C).
In July, nearly 90 percent of the Lytton was destroyed by a wildfire that was fueled by the hot and dry conditions.
On the other end of the extremes, a once-in-500-year flood event in southwestern British Columbia swallowed highways, washed away bridges and cut off railroads during the middle of November.
A swollen creek flows under a washed out bridge at the Carolin Mine interchange with Coquihalla Highway 5 after devastating rain storms caused flooding and landslides, near Hope, British Columbia, Canada November 17, 2021. Picture taken November 17, 2021. B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure/Handout via REUTERS.
The flooding led to at least four deaths and stranded thousands of people.
During the peak of the event, every major route between the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, which includes Vancouver, and the interior of the province was severed by flooding, washouts or landslides, according to The Associated Press.
In July, a multi-day heavy rainfall event unfolded across central and western Europe that triggered catastrophic, deadly flooding.
AccuWeather forecasters say widespread rainfall totals of 4-6 inches (100-150 mm) were recorded across western Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. For many locations across these countries, this amount of rainfall was double, or even triple, the typical monthly precipitation for July.
The equivalent of two or three months' worth of rainfall in just a few days triggered some of the worst flooding the region had ever seen.
As the floodwaters began to recede, the German Chancellor at the time, Angela Merkel, traveled to Rhineland-Palatinate, the hardest-hit area in the country.
"It is shocking – I can almost say that the German language doesn't have words for the destruction that has been unleashed," Merkel told reporters.
Another extreme rain event unfolded in October across Italy when the most intense 12-hour rainfall ever recorded in Europe fell in Rossiglione, Italy.
The historic event brought 29.2 inches (740.6 mm) of rain to the town during half a day's time. The community ended up with a mind-boggling 34.8 inches (883.8 mm) of rainfall over the course of 24 hours.
In addition to the continental 12-hour rainfall record being broken, the Italian record for greatest six-hour rainfall fell when Montenotte Inferiore picked up an incredible 19.5 inches (496 mm). The Italian record for the greatest three-hour rainfall also fell when Vara Superiore received 14.9 inches (377.8 mm).
Earlier in the summer, record-setting heat overtook portions of the continent with Siracusa, located on the island of Sicily, Italy, baking from a temperature of 119.8 F (48.8 C).
If verified by the World Meteorological Organization, this would be the hottest temperature ever recorded in Europe. The previous all-time high for Europe was recorded in Athens, Greece, on July 10, 1977, when the thermometer climbed to 118.4 F (48.0 C).
During the month of May, India bore the brunt of the two strongest tropical cyclones to form across the Indian Ocean this year - Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm Tauktae and Very Severe Cyclonic Storm Yaas.
Tauktae made landfall on May 17 in northwestern India with the equivalent intensity of a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Just hours before landfall, the storm reached peak intensity as an extremely severe cyclonic storm with three-minute sustained winds of 115 mph (185 km/h).
According to Dr. Jeff Masters, a former hurricane hunter with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Tauktae's one-minute sustained winds of 140 mph (225 km/h) on May 17, put it as the fifth-strongest tropical cyclone on record in the Arabian Sea.
A man walks past a fallen tree after heavy rainfall in Mumbai India, Tuesday, May 18, 2021. The Maharashtra state capital was largely spared from any major damage as Cyclone Tauktae, the most powerful storm to hit the region in more than two decades, came ashore in neighboring Gujarat state late Monday. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)
Tauktae led to the evacuation of more than 200,000 people in the Indian state of Gujarat amid India's largest surge of COVID-19 cases to date. At least 175 deaths were blamed on the storm.
On the heels of Tauktae, Cyclone Yaas made landfall just nine days later in northeastern India with the equivalent intensity of a Category 1 hurricane.
Yass led to around 20 deaths across northeast India and Bangladesh, and more than 300,000 homes were destroyed, said West Bengal’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. More than a million people were evacuated in advance of the storm, according to The Guardian.
In October, a storm that had first brought flooding rainfall to portions of northern India emerged over the Arabian Sea and went on to do something that had never been recorded since modern record-keeping began.
When Cyclone Shaheen made landfall on the northeastern coast of Oman on Oct. 3, 2021, it became the first cyclonic storm to strike northeastern Oman in modern record-keeping, according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist and Lead International Forecaster Jason Nicholls.
The last time northeastern Oman was dealt a blow by a cyclonic storm was back in the 19th century. An unnamed cyclone struck northeastern Oman on June 5, 1890, and more than 750 people were killed due to flooding rainfall and damaging winds.
This satellite image shows Shaheen making landfall in northeastern Oman on Sunday night, October 3, 2021. (CIRA/RAMMB)
At the time of landfall, Shaheen packed three-minute average sustained wind speeds of 63 mph (102 km/h) and was the equivalent of a strong tropical storm in the Atlantic and East Pacific basins. It was designated as a "severe cyclonic storm" by the India Meteorological Department (IMD), which monitors the North Indian Ocean basin.
Thousands of people in the affected region were evacuated as heavy rain and strong winds pounded the area. Ultimately, 14 casualties were attributed to Shaheen, according to The Guardian.
Typhoon In-fa unleashed a slow-moving disaster across eastern China leading to at least 58 deaths as it made landfall near Shanghai in late July.
Due to the slow-moving nature of the storm, rainfall totals from In-fa surpassed 24 inches (600 mm) in the eastern Chinese provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Zhoushan City, where In-fa made landfall, picked up 24.1 inches (612 mm) of rain in just two days. Shanghai received 18.59 inches (472 mm) of rain from July 24 to Aug. 1.
Typhoon "In-fa" arrived in Nanjing, in east China's Jiangsu province, and made life difficult. (Reuters)
Before In-fa even brought a drop of rain to China, portions of the country were already enduring deadly flooding, where in Henan province, at least 51 deaths were reported, according to Reuters.
According to the World Meteorological Organization, the rainfall over a period of four days in Zhengzhou was more than what typically falls throughout the entire year. Not only that, according to Reuters, the Zhengzhou weather bureau said rainfall totals over the three days were an occurrence that happens only "once in a thousand years."
Super Typhoon Chanthu came in at one of the strongest typhoons to develop in the western Pacific Ocean this year when it reached a peak intensity equivalent to a Category 5 hurricane in the early and middle part of September. The storm took a direct hit on the Philippines's Batanes Islands where one resident said "It's one of the strongest typhoons I've felt," Reuters reported.
With far-reaching impacts, Chanthu slammed some of the same areas in eastern China that received a deluge from In-fa a short time earlier. At least one location in Zhoushan City's Dinghai District received 26.1 inches of rain (662 mm) from Chanthu. Elsewhere, more than 300,000 people in Shanghai were evacuated due to Chanthu's impacts, according to state-affiliated media.
Closer to the end of the year, the United Kingdom was hit by what was called one of the worst storms in decades.
In November, Storm Arwen ushered in widespread damage, cut off power to more than 250,000 customers, prompted a rare red weather warning for wind and led to the deaths of at least three people.
The strongest winds from Storm Arwen targeted areas near the border between Scotland and England where wind gusts of 80-90 mph (130-145 km/h) were common. The highest gust reported blew across Scotland's Cairnwell Mountain and reached 117 mph (189 km/h).
According to the BBC, Rod Gardner, Northern Powergrid's major incident manager said, "The impact from Storm Arwen has been one of the worst we've experienced in the last 20 years," and that "extensive damage" had been dealt to a large section of the power lines.
Blanketing snow left the famous inn inaccessible, and inescapable, as over 60 visitors were trapped for multiple days. (Facebook/The Tan Hill Inn)
In addition to strong winds, Storm Arwen also unleashed snow across portions of the United Kingdom and caused major travel disruptions. North of Manchester, England, a section of a highway was shut down after 120 trucks were left stranded in the snow following an accident, according to the BBC.
In northern England, blizzard conditions caused by Storm Arwen stranded 61 people in a pub for three nights.
Not to be outdone by the previous typhoons of 2021, Super Typhoon Rai targeted the southern Philippines during the middle of December. Rai rapidly strengthened before landfall into "one of the most powerful typhoons to ever hit the southern Philippines," according to the chairman of the Philippine Red Cross.
As of Dec. 22, the death toll in the Philippines was at least 375 people, with another 56 people missing and over 500 injured, according to The Washington Post.
For the latest weather news check back on AccuWeather.com. Watch the AccuWeather Network on DIRECTV, Frontier, Spectrum, fuboTV, Philo, and Verizon Fios. AccuWeather Now is now available on your preferred streaming platform.
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News / Weather News
2021's most impactful weather moments from around the world
From powerful typhoons in the West Pacific to unprecedented heat waves and wildfires in northwestern Canada, there was no shortage of dramatic global weather events in 2021.
By Mary Gilbert, AccuWeather meteorologist & Adam Douty, AccuWeather senior meteorologist
Published Dec 31, 2021 5:02 PM EDT | Updated Dec 31, 2021 5:06 PM EDT
New Zealand and Australia celebrated the New Year as the clock turned hands at midnight, ushering in 2022.
Thanks to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, 2021 was yet another year where the everyday lives of people around the globe were anything but normal, and Mother Nature certainly followed suit.
From powerful storms to historic flooding and unprecedented heat waves and wildfires, adverse weather led to even more chaos in an ever-changing time. As residents of the United States can attest, there was no shortage of dramatic weather events over the past calendar year. Here's a look back at some of the most significant weather events from elsewhere around the world in 2021.
Storm Filomena clobbers Spain to start the year
Just days after the new year began, an unusual weather pattern allowed a potent storm to spring forth and take aim at the Iberian Peninsula. This storm was given the name Filomena by the Spanish Meteorological Agency (AEMet) right before it brought bone-chilling conditions and the largest snowfall in decades to portions of Spain.
For the first time since its creation, AEMet issued a red alert, the highest on its warning scale, for snow for the Madrid area as a result of Filomena. As the punishing storm unleashed its fury, an estimated 13 inches (33 cm) of snow fell across Madrid, with reports of up to 24 inches (60 cm) in areas just outside the city.
AEMet confirmed Filomena's record-breaking snowfall -- it was the largest event the city had seen in 50 years, when around 8 inches (20 cm) fell in Madrid with up to 12 inches (30 cm) in surrounding areas in 1971.
A woman tries to remove the snow from her car during a heavy snowfall in downtown Madrid, Spain, on Jan. 9, 2021. A persistent blizzard blanketed large parts of Spain with 50-year record levels of snow, halting traffic and leaving thousands trapped in cars or in train stations and airports that suspended all services as the snow kept falling. (AP Photo/Andrea Comas)
Record-cold also converged on the region as a result of Filomena. A new record low temperature for the entirety of Spain was recorded amid Filomena when the thermometer read 32 below zero F (35.6 below zero C) at Vega de Liordes at the Picos de Europe National Park near Leon in northern Spain.
Madrid also had a brush with record cold when the mercury plummeted to 9 F (13 below zero C). This fell just shy of breaking the January record low temperature of 4 F (-15.6 C) set in 1945, according to AEMet.
Ultimately, at least four deaths were attributed to Filomena.
CLICK HERE FOR THE FREE ACCUWEATHER APP
From extreme heat to severe flooding across British Columbia, Canada
As summer arrived, a deadly heat wave overtook much of southwestern Canada and the northwestern United States. During the last week of June, heat warped infrastructure, pushed cooling equipment to the limits and ultimately claimed hundreds of lives.
High temperature records were shattered on both sides of the border, but there was one Canadian town that bore the brunt of the heat. The village of Lytton, located in the province of British Columbia, broke the all-time Canadian high-temperature record not once or twice, but three times in the span of three days.
The stretch of record-setting warmth began on Sunday, June 27, when the town reached 116 F (46.6 C). The record was broken again on Monday, June 28, with a high of 118 F (47.8 C) and yet again on Tuesday, June 29, with an astonishingly high temperature of 121 F (49.6 C).
In July, nearly 90 percent of the Lytton was destroyed by a wildfire that was fueled by the hot and dry conditions.
On the other end of the extremes, a once-in-500-year flood event in southwestern British Columbia swallowed highways, washed away bridges and cut off railroads during the middle of November.
A swollen creek flows under a washed out bridge at the Carolin Mine interchange with Coquihalla Highway 5 after devastating rain storms caused flooding and landslides, near Hope, British Columbia, Canada November 17, 2021. Picture taken November 17, 2021. B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure/Handout via REUTERS.
The flooding led to at least four deaths and stranded thousands of people.
During the peak of the event, every major route between the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, which includes Vancouver, and the interior of the province was severed by flooding, washouts or landslides, according to The Associated Press.
Flooding and heatwaves span Europe
In July, a multi-day heavy rainfall event unfolded across central and western Europe that triggered catastrophic, deadly flooding.
AccuWeather forecasters say widespread rainfall totals of 4-6 inches (100-150 mm) were recorded across western Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. For many locations across these countries, this amount of rainfall was double, or even triple, the typical monthly precipitation for July.
The equivalent of two or three months' worth of rainfall in just a few days triggered some of the worst flooding the region had ever seen.
As the floodwaters began to recede, the German Chancellor at the time, Angela Merkel, traveled to Rhineland-Palatinate, the hardest-hit area in the country.
"It is shocking – I can almost say that the German language doesn't have words for the destruction that has been unleashed," Merkel told reporters.
Another extreme rain event unfolded in October across Italy when the most intense 12-hour rainfall ever recorded in Europe fell in Rossiglione, Italy.
The historic event brought 29.2 inches (740.6 mm) of rain to the town during half a day's time. The community ended up with a mind-boggling 34.8 inches (883.8 mm) of rainfall over the course of 24 hours.
In addition to the continental 12-hour rainfall record being broken, the Italian record for greatest six-hour rainfall fell when Montenotte Inferiore picked up an incredible 19.5 inches (496 mm). The Italian record for the greatest three-hour rainfall also fell when Vara Superiore received 14.9 inches (377.8 mm).
Earlier in the summer, record-setting heat overtook portions of the continent with Siracusa, located on the island of Sicily, Italy, baking from a temperature of 119.8 F (48.8 C).
If verified by the World Meteorological Organization, this would be the hottest temperature ever recorded in Europe. The previous all-time high for Europe was recorded in Athens, Greece, on July 10, 1977, when the thermometer climbed to 118.4 F (48.0 C).
India endures back-to-back tropical cyclones
During the month of May, India bore the brunt of the two strongest tropical cyclones to form across the Indian Ocean this year - Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm Tauktae and Very Severe Cyclonic Storm Yaas.
Tauktae made landfall on May 17 in northwestern India with the equivalent intensity of a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Just hours before landfall, the storm reached peak intensity as an extremely severe cyclonic storm with three-minute sustained winds of 115 mph (185 km/h).
According to Dr. Jeff Masters, a former hurricane hunter with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Tauktae's one-minute sustained winds of 140 mph (225 km/h) on May 17, put it as the fifth-strongest tropical cyclone on record in the Arabian Sea.
A man walks past a fallen tree after heavy rainfall in Mumbai India, Tuesday, May 18, 2021. The Maharashtra state capital was largely spared from any major damage as Cyclone Tauktae, the most powerful storm to hit the region in more than two decades, came ashore in neighboring Gujarat state late Monday. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)
Tauktae led to the evacuation of more than 200,000 people in the Indian state of Gujarat amid India's largest surge of COVID-19 cases to date. At least 175 deaths were blamed on the storm.
On the heels of Tauktae, Cyclone Yaas made landfall just nine days later in northeastern India with the equivalent intensity of a Category 1 hurricane.
Yass led to around 20 deaths across northeast India and Bangladesh, and more than 300,000 homes were destroyed, said West Bengal’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. More than a million people were evacuated in advance of the storm, according to The Guardian.
Cyclone delivers historic hit to Oman
In October, a storm that had first brought flooding rainfall to portions of northern India emerged over the Arabian Sea and went on to do something that had never been recorded since modern record-keeping began.
When Cyclone Shaheen made landfall on the northeastern coast of Oman on Oct. 3, 2021, it became the first cyclonic storm to strike northeastern Oman in modern record-keeping, according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist and Lead International Forecaster Jason Nicholls.
The last time northeastern Oman was dealt a blow by a cyclonic storm was back in the 19th century. An unnamed cyclone struck northeastern Oman on June 5, 1890, and more than 750 people were killed due to flooding rainfall and damaging winds.
This satellite image shows Shaheen making landfall in northeastern Oman on Sunday night, October 3, 2021. (CIRA/RAMMB)
At the time of landfall, Shaheen packed three-minute average sustained wind speeds of 63 mph (102 km/h) and was the equivalent of a strong tropical storm in the Atlantic and East Pacific basins. It was designated as a "severe cyclonic storm" by the India Meteorological Department (IMD), which monitors the North Indian Ocean basin.
Thousands of people in the affected region were evacuated as heavy rain and strong winds pounded the area. Ultimately, 14 casualties were attributed to Shaheen, according to The Guardian.
Monstrous typhoons roam West Pacific
Typhoon In-fa unleashed a slow-moving disaster across eastern China leading to at least 58 deaths as it made landfall near Shanghai in late July.
Due to the slow-moving nature of the storm, rainfall totals from In-fa surpassed 24 inches (600 mm) in the eastern Chinese provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Zhoushan City, where In-fa made landfall, picked up 24.1 inches (612 mm) of rain in just two days. Shanghai received 18.59 inches (472 mm) of rain from July 24 to Aug. 1.
Typhoon "In-fa" arrived in Nanjing, in east China's Jiangsu province, and made life difficult. (Reuters)
Before In-fa even brought a drop of rain to China, portions of the country were already enduring deadly flooding, where in Henan province, at least 51 deaths were reported, according to Reuters.
According to the World Meteorological Organization, the rainfall over a period of four days in Zhengzhou was more than what typically falls throughout the entire year. Not only that, according to Reuters, the Zhengzhou weather bureau said rainfall totals over the three days were an occurrence that happens only "once in a thousand years."
Super Typhoon Chanthu came in at one of the strongest typhoons to develop in the western Pacific Ocean this year when it reached a peak intensity equivalent to a Category 5 hurricane in the early and middle part of September. The storm took a direct hit on the Philippines's Batanes Islands where one resident said "It's one of the strongest typhoons I've felt," Reuters reported.
With far-reaching impacts, Chanthu slammed some of the same areas in eastern China that received a deluge from In-fa a short time earlier. At least one location in Zhoushan City's Dinghai District received 26.1 inches of rain (662 mm) from Chanthu. Elsewhere, more than 300,000 people in Shanghai were evacuated due to Chanthu's impacts, according to state-affiliated media.
Strongest storm in decades wallops the UK
Closer to the end of the year, the United Kingdom was hit by what was called one of the worst storms in decades.
In November, Storm Arwen ushered in widespread damage, cut off power to more than 250,000 customers, prompted a rare red weather warning for wind and led to the deaths of at least three people.
The strongest winds from Storm Arwen targeted areas near the border between Scotland and England where wind gusts of 80-90 mph (130-145 km/h) were common. The highest gust reported blew across Scotland's Cairnwell Mountain and reached 117 mph (189 km/h).
According to the BBC, Rod Gardner, Northern Powergrid's major incident manager said, "The impact from Storm Arwen has been one of the worst we've experienced in the last 20 years," and that "extensive damage" had been dealt to a large section of the power lines.
Blanketing snow left the famous inn inaccessible, and inescapable, as over 60 visitors were trapped for multiple days. (Facebook/The Tan Hill Inn)
In addition to strong winds, Storm Arwen also unleashed snow across portions of the United Kingdom and caused major travel disruptions. North of Manchester, England, a section of a highway was shut down after 120 trucks were left stranded in the snow following an accident, according to the BBC.
In northern England, blizzard conditions caused by Storm Arwen stranded 61 people in a pub for three nights.
Super Typhoon Rai thrashes Philippines
Not to be outdone by the previous typhoons of 2021, Super Typhoon Rai targeted the southern Philippines during the middle of December. Rai rapidly strengthened before landfall into "one of the most powerful typhoons to ever hit the southern Philippines," according to the chairman of the Philippine Red Cross.
As of Dec. 22, the death toll in the Philippines was at least 375 people, with another 56 people missing and over 500 injured, according to The Washington Post.
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