- New Drought Zones Are Emerging in the Most Unexpected Regions - June 23, 2025
- What I Learned After a Month Without Air Conditioning - June 20, 2025
- Why Some Scientists Are Now Pushing Back on Climate Crisis Forecasts - June 20, 2025
England’s Wettest Counties Face Historic Water Shortage
Yorkshire, the land of rolling green hills and centuries-old stone walls, just became the poster child for something nobody saw coming. Yorkshire has become the second region to enter drought status following the driest spring in 132 years, with the Environment Agency announcing the change in status on June 12, 2025, following declining river flows and groundwater levels because of the dry March, April and May. Think about that for a second: Yorkshire, where it’s always seemed to rain, is now officially in drought. An unseasonably dry spring, the driest in nearly 90 years means many reservoir levels are only 60-65% full, well below the 80-85% average for this time of year. Hot and dry weather can increase wildfires, severely damaging vulnerable areas of heathland and moorland, with Yorkshire having seen several wildfires on the Pennine moorland, including large fires at Marsden Moor, Wessenden, and Rishworth Moor. It’s like watching someone you never expected to see thirsty suddenly asking for a glass of water.
Tehran’s Reservoirs Hit Record Empty Levels
Water reserves in Tehran’s five main reservoirs have plummeted to 13 percent of their capacity, with the Lar dam, a vital source for the capital, nearly empty at only 1 percent full. Picture this: a city of nearly 9 million people facing what officials are calling potential “water bankruptcy.” The 2024–25 water year has been described as one of the most challenging in Iran’s history, with average rainfall about 45% below normal, and nineteen provinces in significant drought, with Hormozgan in the south reporting a 77% decrease in rainfall, and Sistan-Baluchestan a 72% drop. The rainfall in Tehran since the beginning of 2025 has been the lowest recorded in 55 years. This isn’t just a number on a chart – it’s families rationing water for basic needs, students skipping university because they can’t stay clean, and a government preparing for 12-hour water cuts for high-consumption households. Authorities are preparing to introduce rationing, with daily supply cuts expected to curb consumption as shortages worsen.
America’s Mighty Colorado River System Struggles
Combined storage in the two major reservoirs is just 33 percent of capacity, with combined storage in Lake Powell and Lake Mead down 691 thousand-acre-feet from this time last year, with storage at 33 percent of capacity. These aren’t just any lakes – they’re the lifelines for over 40 million people across the American Southwest. Projections show Lake Mead’s water levels 1,062.32 feet above sea level on January 1, 2025, and Lake Powell’s at 3,574.08 feet, with the study projecting Lake Mead will have water levels 1,062.32 feet above sea level while Lake Powell will be at 3,574.08 feet above sea level. The Upper Colorado Basin’s snowpack is underperforming, at 88 percent of average level. It’s a bit like watching your savings account drain faster than you can fill it. What makes this particularly striking is how the drought is hitting regions that were supposed to be the “wet” ones, forcing states into water-sharing agreements they never thought they’d need.
Amazon Rivers Drop to 122-Year Record Lows
The Port of Manaus measured the Rio Negro river at 12.66 meters on Friday, according to its website, surpassing the previous all-time low recorded last year and still falling rapidly, with the port’s head of operations saying “This is now the most severe drought in over 120 years of measurement at the Port of Manaus.” The Amazon – the world’s largest river system – is literally running on empty. National disaster monitoring agency Cemaden has already called the drought Brazil’s worst such event since at least the 1950s, and the drought has also sapped hydropower plants, Brazil’s main source of electricity. Brazil as a whole faces the most severe drought of its history, both in intensity and in the size of the affected areas, with the phenomenon hitting two-thirds of the country — an area equivalent to the size of India — with some cities counting more than 150 days without a single drop of rain. Researchers are once again finding the carcasses of Amazon freshwater river dolphins, which they blame on thinning waters driving the threatened species into closer contact with humans. When the world’s mightiest river system starts failing, you know something fundamental has shifted.
European Cities Face Widespread Drying Trends
All European cities analysed exhibit drying trends over the past 42 years, including Madrid, the French capital Paris, and London, which could lead to more frequent and long-lasting droughts. This isn’t what anyone expected from Europe’s traditionally wet climate. The map shows stable drought conditions across southern and eastern Europe, with severe, enduring, and critical conditions persisting in the Mediterranean, the Balkans and the Black Sea region. Some areas in the Mediterranean region, particularly in southeastern Spain, southern Italy, southern Greece, western Türkiye are under persistent alert drought conditions, with impacts on the vegetation, with this severe and prolonged drought even more intense in some regions in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, causing significant impacts. Even Ireland and northern Great Britain are showing warning signs. Think of it as Europe’s green reputation slowly browning around the edges.
The “Climate Whiplash” Phenomenon Hits Global Cities
Almost 1 in 5 (17%) of cities studied emerge as experiencing ‘climate whiplash’ – which involves intensification of both droughts and floods – whereas 20% of cities have seen a major flip from one extreme to the other, with cities in Southern Asia becoming overwhelmingly flood-prone and European cities exhibiting significant drying trends. The phenomenon, also affecting Cape Town, sees prolonged droughts that can cause water shortages, food insecurity and electricity disruptions interspersed with intense rainfall, overwhelming urban drainage and resulting in flash floods that displace communities, damage roads and spread waterborne diseases, with the rapid shift between these extremes making it difficult for people to prepare and recover, damaging economies and endangering lives. 17 cities across multiple continents – 15% of the cities studied – are experiencing an intensification of both extreme floods and droughts, known as ‘climate whiplash’, including Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Hangzhou (China), and Jakarta (Indonesia). It’s like nature can’t make up its mind – one month you’re sandbagging against floods, the next you’re praying for rain.
Canada’s Prairie Provinces Enter Unexpected Dry Spell
At the end of the month, 44% of the country was classified as Abnormally Dry (D0) or in Moderate to Extreme Drought (D1 to D3), including 41% of the country’s agricultural landscape, with drought conditions worsening across much of the Pacific Region this month due to below normal precipitation and warm temperatures. Several communities in the southeast recorded their driest starts to the year, with Kelowna, Vernon, and Penticton reporting their first, second, and third driest Januarys, respectively, receiving 26.5%, 21.2%, and 21.9% of normal precipitation this month. As a result of low precipitation, decreasing snowpack levels, and warm temperatures southern British Columbia saw worsening drought conditions, with most of the southern region recording less than 40% of normal precipitation. Canada, land of endless snow and pristine lakes, is suddenly finding itself rationing water in places that never thought they’d need to. Central British Columbia saw a reversal in the trend of recent drought recovery and dry conditions led to the addition of Abnormally Dry (D0) and Moderate Drought (D1) conditions across most central regions, the central coast and Haida Gwaii.
African Cities Navigate Between Floods and Droughts
At the same time, in East Africa, more severe droughts are giving way to heavier floods, a back-to-back pattern that is becoming more pronounced, with three capital cities – Nairobi in Kenya, Addis Ababa in Ethiopia and Kampala in Uganda – experiencing this so-called “climate whiplash”. Last month, southern Botswana and eastern South Africa suffered five consecutive days of heavy rainfall which caused severe flooding across the region, killing at least 31 people, including six children, and displacing about 5,000 others. Based on the data, they estimated that similar rainfall events are about 60% more intense today than in pre-industrial times, before humans started burning fossil fuels. Sudan’s capital Khartoum and Cameroon’s capital Yaoundé, meanwhile, are experiencing a flip in their prevailing climate trends from wet to dry extremes, with the opposite happening in the Nigerian city of Kano. It’s as if the weather patterns these cities have relied on for centuries are suddenly playing by completely different rules.
Australia’s Northeastern Regions Face Unexpected Dry Conditions
As Australia grapples with the aftermath of Ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred, WaterAid has released new data revealing concerning patterns emerging across the continent. While much of the focus has been on traditional drought-prone areas, unexpected regions are now experiencing water stress. From recent drought in cities like Madrid (Spain) and Cape Town (South Africa), to large-scale flooding across cities in Bangladesh and Pakistan, 90% of all climate disasters are driven by too little or too much water, with weather-related disasters such as flooding and drought having increased by 400% in last 50 years. The coastal regions that once enjoyed reliable rainfall patterns are now seeing extended dry periods punctuated by intense storm events. This creates a particularly challenging situation for communities that built their water infrastructure around predictable seasonal patterns. Australia’s experience mirrors what’s happening globally – the reliable patterns our grandparents knew are becoming increasingly unreliable.
The Science Behind the Shift
The evidence shows that hydroclimate whiplash has already increased due to global warming, and further warming will bring about even larger increases. New research links intensifying wet and dry swings to the atmosphere’s sponge-like ability to drop and absorb water. Hydroclimate whiplash — rapid swings between intensely wet and dangerously dry weather — has already increased globally due to climate change, with further large increases expected as warming continues. Think of it this way: as the atmosphere warms, it can hold more moisture, like a bigger sponge. But when it releases that water, it does so more intensely, and when it absorbs water, it can create longer, more severe dry periods. The rate at which the Amazon is drying up is scary and much faster than anyone predicted, with some parts of the Amazon seeing the annual dry season now lasting one month longer than it did in the 1970s. The physics are straightforward, but the implications are staggering – we’re essentially living through a planetary-scale experiment in real time.
What’s most unsettling isn’t just where these droughts are happening, but how quickly they’re developing in places that seemed immune just a few years ago. Did you expect Yorkshire to run out of water before the Sahara got wetter?
