Weather news

Officially launched in March 2022 by the European Commission, Destination Earth (known as DestinE) aims to deliver improved capability in dealing with extreme weather and climate events. The overall ambition, with a 2030 delivery target date, is to provide a digital replica of our planet in unprecedented detail, enabling better-informed environmental policy decisions to be made. DestinE is made of three principal components, each run by an 'entrusted entity': the 'Data Lake', administered by EUMETSAT, to provide storage and access to the vast datasets used and produced by DestinE; 'Digital Twins', the main Earth-system simulations across weather and climate scales, developed by ECMWF; and a 'Core Services Platform' operated by the European Space Agency (ESA). The latter will provide not only raw data, but the ability for various industries and sectors (e.g. offshore wind production) to connect their own impact models and create a seamless workflow from initial prediction of weather extreme to prediction of impact. These main players, alongside hundreds of collaborator organisations, have been working to develop an initial system in the past couple of years, ready for operational implementation. On 10 June this year, this initial iteration of DestinE was launched at an event hosted at the LUMI supercomputer centre in Finland, marking the official start of the project's second phase. This was an apt venue, as the successful running of DestinE will require the use of several high-performance computers across Europe, including three of the top ten fastest computers in the world, of which LUMI is one. The next phase will focus on refining the digital twins and architecture required to both run them and make use of the downstream data, with the goal of getting the full system ready for operational use. Key to success over the next few months and years will be the continued partnership with the European high-performance computing estate, and the introduction of recent breakthroughs in machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence within NWP, which is anticipated to be game-changing in both quantification of forecast uncertainty and enhancement of data access and interactivity for the end user. For more information visit https://destination-earth.eu/. (Sources: European Commission, EUMETSAT, ECMWF.) The frontal wave which brought about a disappointingly soggy start to the Paris Olympics spun up into a notably deep low over the Baltic States as it was engaged by a marked shortwave upper trough moving east over southern Scandinavia. Whilst the resulting explosive cyclogenesis was straight out of the meteorological textbooks, its development during mid-summer was rather more unusual. Worst affected were Latvia and Lithuania, with widespread flooding, wind damage and thousands left without power. Kalnciems in Latvia recorded 180.0mm of rain, a new national all-time daily record. (Sources: The Watchers, UNN.) Parts of the southern Hemisphere experienced unusually cold conditions during the coldest parts of the austral winter; for example Toowumba, west of Brisbane (Australia), fell to –5.7°C on 30 July and Sydney experienced its coldest spell in 13 years. In the second half of June and early July, waves of severe cold weather affected large parts of Argentina, as blocking areas of high pressure swept frigid polar air steadily northwards across the country. In June, the Patagonian provinces of Tierra del Fuego and Santa Cruz recorded official 'cold waves' (defined by the Argentinian Met Service (SMN) with respect to Tmax and Tmin thresholds) lasting between 3 and 8 days. These were accompanied by multiple days with temperatures below freezing, and in places falling as low as −15 to −18°C, leading some news outlets to declare (perhaps somewhat hyperbolically) that parts of the country were 'colder than Antarctica'. Blocked roads due to snow and ice led to food shortages and impacts on human and animal welfare during the height of the cold spell. Through early July, the cold conditions became more widespread, with numerous weather warnings for cold being issued by SMN, including the most serious 'red' alert for parts of central Argentina. On 10 July, almost all provinces had reported minimum temperatures below 0°C, while the capital Buenos Aires fell below −5°C and the city of Gualeguaychú to the north recorded a minimum of −7.6°C, breaking a nearly 80-year record. (Sources: BoM, Weatherzone, SMN, Buenos Aires Herald, The Watchers, @extremetemps on X.) Recent weeks have brought a particularly active spell of the southwest and east Asian monsoons, with severe flooding across the wider region and significant loss of life and damage to infrastructure. Here we describe some of the more notable events: Between 8 and 10 July, parts of Nepal were severely affected by the heaviest monsoon rainfall in at least 78 years, according to the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM). Regions in the southwest of the country were worst affected, with some areas recording over 600mm of rain in just 24h. Around the same time, nearly 50 lives were claimed in just 2 days by lightning in Uttar Pradesh (India). On 9 and 10 July, extremely heavy rainfall, reported to be a 1-in-200 year event by the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA), affected southern and western parts of South Korea. The city of Gunsan received 131.7mm of rain in just 1h early on 10 July (~10% of the average annual rainfall). This was the highest hourly rainfall total in 117 years at this location. Flooding continued in parts of China in July. Particularly intense rainfall occurred on 15/16 July, with almost a year's worth of rain falling in just a day in Sheqi County in Henan, central China. One location picked up 711.6mm in just 24h. Tropical Cyclone Gaemi (see below) also contributed extensively to flooding rains in the days following its landfall in southeast China on 25 July. Worst affected was Hunan Province, with more than 600mm of rain falling in just 24h. The enhanced rainfall also spread to a wider swathe of central and northeastern China and North Korea. The Yalu River, running along the border between China and North Korea, spectacularly burst its banks, completely submerging the town on the North Korean side. While impact details have not been officially released by North Korean authorities, one government official suggested 1000–1500 people were killed or are missing as a result of flooding in the country. (Sources: DHM, KMA, The Korea Herald, The Watchers, The Indian Express, @yangyubin1998 on X, Daily NK.) This was a powerful Category 4 (Atlantic equivalent) storm which impacted the Philippines, Taiwan and China during the second half of July (Figure 1). More than a metre of rain fell over the mountains of southern Taiwan; severe flooding and over 200 deaths occurred across the wider region. An oil tanker capsized and sank off the coast of the Philippines leading to fears of an environmental disaster. Landfall on Taiwan came after a curious loop-the-loop in its track, which could have been due to the storm's interaction with mountainous terrain. Met Office global and regional output (MOGREPS-G, the research formulation GLX, and SE Asia models), captured this deflection in the track around 24–36h prior to landfall. While ECMWF ENS and GEFS forecasts also hinted at this in members with more southerly tracks closer to Taiwan, the signal was not as strong as in various Met Office models. It was also interesting that at least one run of the AIFS model from EC also captured this deviation in the track at a much longer lead time, and that a number of other ML models ultimately proved better guidance than the main IFS model. Whether this was coincidental remains to be seen, but certainly an interesting case. (Sources: Central Weather Agency (CWA), Julian Heming (Met Office), ECMWF.) In June's Weather news, we briefly mentioned the intense heatwave which affected Japan, along with many other east and southeast Asian countries. And for many of these areas, there was no let-up in the hot weather through this summer. A new July record for highest daily mean temperature was set at 25.96°C in 2023, breaking a record which had stood since 1978. At 1.90 degC above the 1991–2020 average, this was indeed significant, however with a daily mean temperature of 26.22°C (2.16 degC above the 1991–2020 average), July 2024 has knocked it out of the park. The fifteen stations used to compile this average are specifically chosen to reduce the effects of urbanisation and are used as a benchmark for Japanese temperatures which go back to 1898. A smaller study of four stations in urban locations also indicated a new record, with a daily mean maximum temperature of 29.22°C, breaking the previous high of 29.18°C set in 1994. (Sources: JMA, @sayakasofiamori on X, The Watchers, The Asahi Shimbun.) At the end of July, the tenth and latest in the annual series of UK 'State of the Climate' reports was released. The report is the result of significant work by and collaboration between the Met Office and a number of partner organisations, and presents the latest authoritative assessment of UK climate trends, variations and extremes. Highlights in the report include the following: 2023 ranking as the second warmest year on record for the UK, only beaten by 2022, and made more likely by climate change; it was the seventh wettest year since 1836, with 4 out of 12 months ranking in the 'top-ten wettest'; and temperature extremes have become more extreme relative to the increase in the average temperature. The full report is available with Open Access in the International Journal of Climatology: https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.8553. (Source: Kendon, M et al (2024). State of the UK Climate 2023. International Journal of Climatology, 44(S1), 1–117.)