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The catastrophic flooding in Libya that has left as many as 10,000 people feared dead is just the latest in a string of intense rainfall events to hammer various parts of the globe over the past two weeks.
In the first 11 days of September, eight devastating flooding events have unfolded on four continents. Before Mediterranean storm Daniel sent floodwaters surging through eastern Libya, severe rains inundated parts of central Greece, northwestern Turkey, southern Brazil, central and coastal Spain, southern China, Hong Kong and the southwestern United States.
Seeing this many unrelated extreme weather events around the world in such a short period of time is unusual, said Andrew Hoell, a research meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Physical Sciences Laboratory.