Wildfires are increasingly driven by extreme weather and climate variability, posing risks to ecosystems, infrastructure, and human health. This study examines the severe KwaZulu-Natal wildfire of August 4, 2024, using an integrated, process-based framework that combines satellite fire detections, tree cover change data, atmospheric reanalysis, and air quality observations. This study provides a new integrated event-scale asse...

Namibia, a predominantly hot and arid country, rarely experiences snowfall, which is generally restricted to elevated southern regions during winter. On 5 August 2025, light snowfall and sleet were reported near Aus, representing a rare occurrence of wintertime frozen precipitation associated with atmospheric variability in a subtropical dryland environment. This study investigates the synoptic and thermodynamic conditions ass...

January 2024 represented an extreme manifestation of the long-term winter warming trend in Iran, characterized by widespread warmth and dryness. During 14–15 January 2024, surface temperatures exceeded climatological means by up to ~ 4 °C, accompanied by reduced mid-tropospheric humidity and below-average precipitation across much of the country, indicating enhanced drought conditions. Synoptic analyses revealed a weakened and...

This study investigates the impact of combined drought and extreme heatwave events on air quality in South Africa during October 2022 (study period). An analysis of meteorological data revealed a sharp increase in surface air temperature and a significant decrease in precipitation, resulting in an extreme heatwave and drought period. The Standardized Precipitation Evaporation Index (SPEI) for October 2022 showed an extreme dro...

This study investigates the characteristics of the more recent heat wave episode in South Africa during January 2023. The evaluation of several meteorological parameters using different reanalysis models and observational datasets have demonstrated that the domination of the anticyclonic pattern over the study area associated with a omega-blocking high. The dominant subtropical Botswana subtropical high along with the low-leve...