This year has produced some really wild weather. And when I say wild, I mean truly unexpected, record-breaking, extreme events that defied our understanding of Earth’s climate system.
To be fair to the scientists who spend their lives trying to predict the weather, it’s hard to understand something that’s undergoing rapid, unprecedented, human-driven change. To try and grasp at some meaning, however, we’ve compiled a list of the eight wildest weather events from the last few months. Every event on this list was fueled by rising global temperatures, underscoring the many ways that human-driven global warming is messing with the climate.
Historic Hurricane Erin
Hurricane Erin, the first major hurricane of the 2025 Atlantic season, will also be remembered as one of the fastest-strengthening on record. In fact, it had the most rapid intensification rate for any storm occurring earlier than September 1.
On August 15, Erin was a Category 1 hurricane swirling northeast of the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean Sea. Just 24 hours later, it exploded into a “catastrophic” Category 5. This kind of raid intensification is becoming increasingly common thanks to climate change, as rising sea surface temperatures fuel storms with more heat and moisture.
Very fortunately, Erin never made direct landfall in the U.S.—its eye remained at least 200 miles away from land as it tracked up the East Coast. Even so, this unusually large storm brought significant coastal impacts to many communities, most notably the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Tropical storm force winds extended more than 500 miles (800 kilometers) out from Erin’s eye, fueling storm surges and rip currents along the entire coast.
Canada’s zombie fires spark an early wildfire season
Canada is experiencing one of its worst wildfire seasons on record, with more than 20 million acres (8 million hectares) of forest burned since May. This year’s season got off to an early and intense start due to “zombie fires,” burns that reignited as temperatures rose in late spring. These overwintering fires—also known as holdover fires—can smolder deep underground for years, sustained by carbon-rich soils like peat.
Incredibly, some of the zombie fires that helped kick off Canada’s 2025 wildfire season have been burning since 2023, according to NOAA. These underground fires are a natural—but increasingly concerning—fixture of Canada’s boreal forests. Rising global temperatures are drying out the soils that fuel zombie fires, in turn causing them to occur more frequently. This, in turn, extends the wildfire season.
Unprecedented European heatwaves
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