On Monday, Camila Lange, who is currently seven months pregnant, sat with her husband and dog in their former home in Vina del Mar, Chile. In the central coastal region of the country, hundreds of houses have been demolished due to fires that have resulted in the deaths of at least 112 individuals.

Extreme weather events like wildfires, droughts, and floods are causing a significant impact globally. Here is an update on some current occurrences.

In Chile, massive wildfires are being fought by firefighters amidst hot and arid weather. The most severe fires are concentrated near Vina del Mar, where a well-known botanical garden established in 1931 was consumed by the flames. Many residential areas on the eastern outskirts of the popular beach town, home to 300,000 people, were engulfed in fire and smoke, leaving some individuals trapped in their houses.

A second atmospheric river, filled with moisture, is targeting Southern California, bringing mudslides, flooded roads, and power outages to approximately 1.4 million residents in the Los Angeles region. The National Weather Service reports that up to 9 inches (23 centimeters) of rain has already fallen as of Monday, with more predicted to come.

The storm caused flooding on streets and knocked down trees and power lines in Northern California on Sunday in the San Francisco Bay Area, where some areas experienced winds over 60 mph (96 kph).

In Spain, there has been a difficulty in accessing safe drinking water due to the country’s severe drought. The Catalan government declared a state of emergency in the northeast region on Thursday, as the reservoirs supplying water to 6 million individuals, including those in Barcelona, are currently at a historic low capacity of under 16%.

– In the meantime, certain researchers suggest that examining Caribbean sea sponges, known for their longevity of hundreds of years, is causing them to hypothesize that the Earth may have experienced more significant warming than previously believed before the Industrial Revolution.

Is it necessary to create a new category to categorize the intensity of tropical storms as they become more powerful? According to some professionals, yes. They suggest adding a Category 6 for hurricanes that reach speeds above 192 miles per hour (309 kilometers per hour).

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Pere Aragonès, the regional president of Catalonia in Spain, has declared a drought emergency, stating that we are now facing a new climate reality. It is highly probable that we will experience more severe and frequent droughts.

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Source: wral.com