About

The Weather and Climate Extremes Archive provides historical and geographical perspectives of observed limits of extreme weather and climate events. Such an archive is importante in a changing climate where many weather and climate extremes are increasing in frequency and intensity, and the most extreme impacts come disproportionately from the most extreme events.

Improving the understanding and characterization of extreme weather and climate events is also crucial for decision support and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). WMO has contributed to the implementation of Early Warning Systems (EWS) to protect people and livelihoods since its establishment and now is leading international efforts through the United Nations Initiative “Early Warnings for All” to strengthen Earth system observations and monitoring, predictive and warning capabilities in every region globally.

A Record of a weather or climate variable refers to the highest value so far known for the variable, in a given geographical context, such as global, regional, national or a specific geographical domain of interest. The most popular is the highest or lowest temperature recorded so far in any place of the world.
Inquiries for consideration of new world/regional weather records should be made to the Rapporteur for Climate Extremes: Randy Cerveny (cerveny@asu.edu)

For more information: Guidelines for the WMO Evaluation of Records of Weather and Climate Extremes (WMO-No. 1317)