GLOBAL WEATHER HIGHLIGHTS

NOVEMBER 2025

UNITED STATES

A powerful storm doused California with heavy rain on Friday, prompting evacuation warnings as the state braced for the potential of floods, mudslides, thunderstorms, and even the chance of a tornado over the weekend.  More than 4in of rain fell over coastal Santa Barbara County as the storm moved south toward Los Angeles, according to the National Weather Service.  Communities in Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Los Angeles counties – especially those near burn scars where there are higher risks for mudslides and debris flows – could be in for a dangerously wet weekend, with two surges of rainfall expected through Sunday.  As communities prepared for Saturday’s expected storm surge, evacuation warnings were issued through Sunday morning in areas affected by recent wildfires, including those by the major blazes in Los Angeles in January.  Forecasters with the National Weather Service in Los Angeles warned that roads and highways would likely see flooding, along with debris flows that could block thoroughfares and damage infrastructure.

The eastern half of the US has been gripped by an exceptional early winter cold spell this week, breaking a multitude of low-temperature records. Eighty weather stations across the Deep South either tied or broke their daily minimum record on 11 November. Jacksonville in northern Florida experienced temperatures as low as -3C early on Wednesday morning, 17C below the average minimum for the time of year. The cold outbreak also brought extreme snowfall to parts of Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Areas along the southern and western coasts of Lake Michigan experienced a phenomenon known as lake effect snow on Monday. This develops when cold air – which covered the US this week – moves over the relatively warm water of a lake or inland sea. This produces convection and heavy showers that move inland downwind of the lake, and can continue for hours or even days on end.

Darrel John watched the final evacuees depart his village on the western coast of Alaska in helicopters and small planes and walked home, avoiding the debris piled on the boardwalks over the swampy land. He is one of seven residents who chose to remain in Kwigillingok after the remnants of Typhoon Halong devastated the village last month, uprooting homes and floating many of them miles away, some with residents inside. One person was killed, and two remain missing. “I just couldn’t leave my community,” John said while inside the town’s school, a shelter and command post where he had helped solve problems in the storm’s aftermath. But what will become of that community and others damaged by the severe flooding – whether their people, including John’s children, will come back – is an open question as winter arrives.

Severe thunderstorms developed across the Iberian Peninsula on Wednesday, with Aemet, the Spanish meteorological service, issuing an orange weather warning across much of the country. These thunderstorms were triggered by a cold front passing eastward across Iberia, due to a deep area of low pressure situated just to the north-west of Spain in the Atlantic Ocean, which at its lowest had a central pressure of 989hPa.  There was heavy rain across Iberia, with more than 30mm falling in just 24 hours across Galicia, where more localized totals reached 60mm, leading to some surface flooding. Parts of Castilla y León also had high totals, with the town of Cáceres recording 50mm in 24 hours, with flooding making roads impassable. There were reports of large hail, notably in southern Spain, where a 6cm hailstone was spotted in Cádiz, Andalucía. Strong winds also battered Iberia, notably along the north coast of Spain, where gusts of 55mph were widespread. More locally, gusts reached 65mph, and one gust of 99mph was reported in Ouria, Asturias, in north-west Spain.

INDONESIA

Flash floods and landslides on Indonesia’s Sumatra island have killed 69 people, with 59 missing as emergency workers search in rivers and the rubble of villages for bodies and possible survivors. Monsoon rains over the past week caused rivers to burst their banks in North Sumatra province on Tuesday. The deluge tore through mountainside villages, swept away people, and submerged more than 2,000 houses and buildings, the National Disaster Management Agency said. Nearly 5,000 residents fled to government shelters. Television reports showed rescue personnel using jackhammers, circular saws, farm tools, and sometimes their bare hands to dig in areas marked by thick mud, rocks, and uprooted trees. Rescuers in rubber boats were searching through a river and helped children and older people who were forced onto the roofs of flooded homes and buildings. In North Sumatra province, the death toll rose to 37 as rescue personnel recovered more bodies on Thursday, said provincial police spokesperson Ferry Walintukan in a statement. Rescuers were searching for 52 residents reported missing, but mudslides, blackouts, and a lack of telecommunications were hampering search efforts, he said.

ASIA

The death toll from major flooding in Vietnam has risen to 90, with 12 more people missing, the environment ministry said on Sunday after days of heavy rain and landslides.  Relentless rain has lashed south-central Vietnam since late October, and popular holiday destinations have been hit by several rounds of flooding.  Rainfall has exceeded 1,900mm (74.8in) in some parts of central Vietnam over the past week. The region is a major coffee production belt and home to popular beaches, but it is also prone to storms and floods. More than 60 of the deaths since 16 November were recorded in mountainous central Dak Lak province, where tens of thousands of homes were flooded, the ministry said in a statement.  Last week, rescuers using boats in central Gia Lai and Dak Lak provinces pried open windows and broke through roofs to assist residents stranded by high water, according to state media, with the army, police, and other security forces mobilized to relocate and evacuate people to safe areas.  Rescuers brought food and water to flooded hospitals in the coastal city of Quy Nhon in Binh Dinh province, state-run Thanh Niên newspaper said, after doctors and patients at one facility survived on instant noodles and water for three days.

Officials in Indonesia say more than 442 people have died, while Sri Lanka suffers its worst natural disaster since the 2004 tsunami. Authorities in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Thailand are racing to clear debris and find hundreds of missing people after more than 900 died in devastating floods and landslides across the south of Asia. In the latest example of the impact of the climate crisis on storm patterns and extreme weather, heavy monsoon rains, exacerbated by a tropical storm, have overwhelmed parts of south-east Asia in recent days, leaving thousands of people stranded without shelter or critical supplies. Meanwhile, in Sri Lanka in South Asia, the death toll from floods and landslides caused by Cyclone Ditwah rose sharply on Sunday to 334, with many more still missing and low-lying areas of the capital, Colombo, under water, authorities said. It is the worst natural disaster to hit the island in two decades since the devastating 2004 tsunami that killed about 31,000 people there and left more than a million homeless. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who has declared a state of emergency, vowed to build back with international support. “We are facing the largest and most challenging natural disaster in our history,” he said in an address to the nation. “Certainly, we will build a better nation than what existed before.”  In Indonesia, officials said more than 442 people had died, and a further 402 were missing as authorities attempted to reach some of the hardest-hit areas of Sumatra island, where thousands of people were stranded without critical supplies.

EUROPE

Portugal and Spain are again recovering from flooding after Storm Claudia brought heavy rain and strong winds last week. The storm developed from an area of low pressure that had earlier driven early-season cold and snowy conditions through eastern parts of Canada and the north-eastern US through early November.  The system tracked eastwards across the Atlantic during the second weekend of November before slowing and stalling to the north-west of the Iberian Peninsula, caught in the trough of an increasingly amplified, or wavy, jet stream. Spain’s meteorological service AEMET named the storm last Monday before the arrival of several bouts of heavy rainfall, which slowly pushed through during the rest of the week.  Galicia in north-west Spain was hit first, with 80 to 150mm of rain falling along its west coast in just 24 hours up to Wednesday evening as a slow-moving band of rain pushed across western parts of the Iberian peninsula. Further showers and thunderstorms on Thursday brought flooding to parts of Portugal, where an elderly couple died in Lisbon after water from the overflowing Tagus River entered their home as they slept. Stormy conditions persisted into the weekend, with a tornado tearing through a campsite and a nearby hotel in Albufeira, southern Portugal, on Saturday, killing an 85-year-old British woman and injuring 28 people.

Temperatures plummeted this week across the eastern half of Europe, with the Alps dipping as low as -20 °C and to -8.5°C in the Polish town of Zakopane in the Tatras Mountains.  Heavy snow also affected other parts of Poland, with 15-20cm (about 6-8in) of snow falling in much of the central swathe of the country and more than 40cm in the south towards the mountains.  This occurred as an area of low pressure moved up from the Balkans and collided with cold Arctic air over Poland. Due to the sheer amount of snowfall, 2,900 firefighter callouts were made, and 75,000 homes in Rzeszów were left without power. To add to the chaos, an Embraer E170STD aircraft, capable of carrying 80 passengers, veered off the runway onto a grass verge on a flight from Warsaw to Vilnius in Lithuania. Air traffic was delayed for several hours, and the return flight did not depart.

TROPICAL

The super-typhoon Fung-wong has blown through the Philippines, leaving at least eight dead, 1.4 million people displaced, and widespread damage in its wake. More than 1.4 million people were evacuated across the country as the storm triggered flash flooding, storm surges, landslides, and gale-force winds, Philippine authorities said on Monday. Deadly mudslides had killed at least six people across the country, including three children, with others still missing.  The biggest typhoon to threaten the Philippines in years, Fung-wong was forecast to cover two-thirds of the archipelago with its 1,100-mile (1,800km) band of rain and wind.  In Pandan, Catanduanes province, one of the worst-affected areas, footage and photos from disaster response authorities showed flood waters rising to the rooftops and houses being washed away. At least one person was killed in flash flooding as civil defense workers rescued more than a dozen others.

Typhoon Kalmaegi has left at least 66 people dead, with 26 others missing in the central Philippines, many in widespread flooding that trapped people on their roofs and swept away scores of cars in a hard-hit province still recovering from a deadly earthquake, officials said. Among the dead were six people who were killed in a separate incident when a Philippine air force helicopter crashed in the southern province of Agusan del Sur on Tuesday while en route to help provide humanitarian help to provinces battered by Kalmaegi, the military said without giving other details, including what could have caused the crash. Kalmaegi blew away from western Palawan province into the South China Sea before noon on Wednesday with sustained winds of up to 130 kph (81 mph) and gusts of up to 180 kph (112 mph), according to forecasters. Bernardo Rafaelito Alejandro IV, deputy administrator of the Office of Civil Defense, and provincial officials said most of the deaths were reported in the central province of Cebu, which was pummeled by Kalmaegi on Tuesday, setting off flash floods and causing a river and other waterways to swell.

The resulting flooding engulfed residential communities, forcing residents to climb up to their roofs, where they desperately pleaded to be rescued, officials said.