In the past couple of days devastating floods have affected Somalia and surrounding countries, leaving 29 people dead and more than 300,000 people displaced from their homes, with figures expected to rise further as many remain trapped by flood waters.
Kenya also experienced flooding, with 15 deaths recorded. Nazanine Moshiri of the International Crisis Group said the cause of these devastating floods was the combined effect of two weather phenomena: El Niño and the Indian Ocean dipole.
With both of these causing warmer than average sea surface temperatures in their current phase, there has been an increased amount of rainfall during east Africa’s monsoon season, resulting in the worst floods for many decades. These floods follow the region’s worst drought in 40 years, which has exacerbated the effects, with a high amount of surface water runoff than would otherwise have been expected.
Meanwhile, heat records in Tokyo were broken this week when temperatures reached 27.5C on 7 November. This was Tokyo’s warmest November day since records began in 1875, surpassing the previous record of 27.3C set in 1923. This comes after an unusually warm autumn and hot summer across Japan, with Tokyo having seen a record 142 days this year when temperatures have exceeded 25C.
The meteorological agency has attributed the extreme heat to a combined effect of El Niño and global heating, and predicts that the higher than usual temperatures could persist through the rest of November and into December.
The mild winter is expected to result in less snowfall than usual, a prediction that may disappoint many visitors to the country’s winter resorts. There have also been reports of out-of-season sunflower blooms in Chiba, and ginko trees in Tokyo, known for their golden foliage in autumn, have yet to turn yellow.
October 2023 marked another record-breaking month for global temperatures, with land and ocean surface temperatures reaching unprecedented levels, as reported by the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). This extends a streak of five consecutive months with record warm global temperature, making it highly likely that 2023 will be the warmest year ever on record.
