Severe Tropical Cyclone Narelle was a historic event in March this year, becoming the first storm to make landfall across three different Australian states since Tropical Cyclone Ingrid in 2005. The only other system to pass all three regions was Steve in 2000. Narelle stands out for its longevity and distance travelled. First forming in the Coral Sea on 17 March, Narelle initially made landfall in Queensland before returning to the sea, crossing the Northern Territory and moving into Western Australia, reaching Category 4 equivalent strength at its peak. Torrential rain lashed the Cape York Peninsula and the Top End, triggering widespread flooding, particularly around the Daly River. By 24 March, Narelle had weakened to a tropical low as it exited Northern Territory. However, upon re-entering the warm Timor Sea, it restrengthened to a Category 3 equivalent system, bringing further destructive conditions to Western Australia two days later. Heavy rainfall and damaging winds then affected the North West Cape, whilst large waves and abnormally high tides caused extensive damage to western towns and communities. Narelle was notable for its longevity, eventually dissipating in southwestern Australia on 28 March, 11 days after forming, having travelled approximately 6500km (Figure 1). A total of 103 Tropical Cyclone Advice messages were issued by the Bureau of Meteorology during Narelle's lifetime, a number comparable to long-lived systems such as Severe Tropical Cyclone Nathan in 2015. Flooding was exacerbated by already saturated ground following earlier heavy rainfall. Bone-dry riverbeds became fast-moving torrents, with over 200mm of rain reportedly falling in 24h across Northern Territory's Adelaide River, prompting locals to evacuate by boat. As the floodwaters receded, the scale of destruction in Western Australia became clear. Exmouth, approximately 1250km north of Perth, was among the hardest hit, with winds nearing 110kn at the peak of the storm. In the aftermath, beaches were strewn with debris: overturned shipping vessels, damaged homes, and mass marine wildlife casualties. Aptly named Graveyards Beach in Exmouth had turned into a literal graveyard, littered with thousands of baby turtles and eggs, fish, sea snakes, dolphins and seabirds. Similar scenes were replicated across hundreds of kilometres of beaches along the World Heritage-listed Ningaloo coastline. (Sources: Bureau of Meteorology, Guardian, Australian Broadcasting Corporation.) For the first time since 2009, when the facility at High Moorsley became operational, construction of a new radar has been completed, bringing the total number of radars in the UK network to 16. Located on an Anglian Water brown-field site in Old Buckenham, Norfolk, it forms part of a wider, multi-year project which includes ecological improvements on the wider Anglian Water grounds. From conception to realisation, the project has been many years in the making and involved multiple teams from the Met Office in collaboration with partners at Anglian Water and the Environment Agency. Following the installation of its operational antenna scheduled for June 2026, and a testing and commissioning phase, the radar is expected to become operational in September 2026. Significant enhancements to precipitation and wind (via its Doppler capabilities) observations and forecasts across East Anglia and, by extension, to the wider UK radar composite, are anticipated. (Source: Met Office.) March was an active month for the southwest European storm-naming group, with three named systems – Regina, Samuel and Therese – occurring in rapid succession. Their arrival leaves only two names, Vitor and Wilma, on the 25/26 list, highlighting the unusual pace of a season that is the most active since this modern incarnation of European windstorm naming began. Storm Regina was named by the Portuguese weather service on 4 March, bringing waves of over 6m along exposed coasts of the Canary Islands, where wind gusts reached 55kn. The system later made landfall in Iberia, with heavy rainfall and strong winds bringing further disruption to parts of Portugal and Spain. A brief period of quieter conditions followed in the Canary Islands before Storm Therese made its mark later in the month. Therese attracted widespread media attention, primarily due to heavy snowfall over higher ground across the archipelago, particularly Mount Teide – the dormant volcano residing on Tenerife (see Figure 3 of Aerial Views on page 145 for a more typical view). Images of wintry scenes appeared alongside headlines announcing the closure of Tenerife airport, leading to suggestions that widespread snowfall had caused travel disruption across the island. In reality, the main aviation hazards were strong winds and reduced visibility at lower altitudes, leading to the closure of Tenerife North Airport. Intense rainfall was another key feature of the storm. Approximately 60mm fell within 1h at Tacoronte, where red ‘danger to life’ warnings had been issued. Between these events, Storm Samuel (named by the Andorran meteorological service on 15 March but also referred to in some media by its Free University of Berlin name Jolina) affected the Western Mediterranean. Whilst tracking east, it produced gale-force winds, heavy rainfall and hailstorms across Italy. Calabria was particularly affected, with unofficial reports suggesting rainfall totals exceeded 220mm in 24h. Samuel then continued southwards, appearing to transform into a ‘medicane’ before crossing the Libyan coastline with strong winds and flooding rains. As it decayed, the remnants passed into Egypt, where lingering thunderstorms and gusty winds gradually died out. (Sources: The Guardian, BBC, Olive Press, European Space Agency, DA News.eu, The Libya Observer.) For the first time in 5 years, the austral summer minimum in Antarctic sea ice coverage was only slightly below average with a low of 2.584 million km2 being reached on 26 February 2026. This is in stark contrast to the previous 4 years, which have all fallen to more than 2 standard deviations below the mean, including the record breaking low of 1.854 million km2 set in 2023. The Antarctic interior also made headlines in March, with a monthly record breaking low of −76.3°C observed at Vostok on 24 March, just eclipsing the previous −75.7°C recorded at Dome Fuji in 2013. Despite the relatively healthy state of the Antarctic sea ice, the Arctic is transitioning into the melting season in one of its weakest states on record. As well as reaching its lowest ever maximum extent of 14.286 million km2 on 15 March, marginally below the 14.307 million km2 from last year, its thickness is near record lows too. (Sources: National Snow and Ice Data Centre, Carbon Brief.) Hawaii faced severe flash flooding throughout March as a series of intense, slow-moving systems pushed in from the west. Colloquially referred to as Kona lows, or Kona storms, these back-to-back subtropical cyclones deposited torrential rainfall across the islands. Data from the University of Hawaii at Mānoa suggests that more than 2 trillion gallons of rain fell during the month – enough to fill around 3 million Olympic-sized swimming pools. From the Hawaiian language, kona refers to the leeward, or western, side of an island. Under normal conditions, western areas are sheltered by prevailing easterly trade winds; therefore, they remain relatively dry. During a Kona low, however, this pattern breaks down. The trade winds weaken or reverse, allowing moist, unstable air to flow in from the west and southwest. A Kona low is typically a cold-cored, upper-level low-pressure system that becomes cut off from the main jet stream. As it lingers near the islands, it draws in deep tropical moisture and produces persistent, slow-moving bands of rain. Over time, it can take on subtropical characteristics, losing its frontal structure whilst maintaining a broad area of convection. Being slow-moving, having abundant moisture, and occurring in an area of deep atmospheric instability, these systems tend to produce particularly high rainfall totals. The first storm arrived on 13 March, prompting widespread flash flood warnings across the Big Island, O‘ahu, Maui and Kaua‘i. Rainfall totals exceeded 260mm in some areas, with daily records broken at weather stations in Honolulu, Hilo, Līhu‘e and Kahului. Strong winds and saturated soils led to widespread power outages and localised damage, whilst sediment run-off discoloured coastal waters around Kaiaka Bay. A second Kona low on 20 March brought further heavy rain, falling onto already saturated ground. This exacerbated flooding and prompted thousands of evacuations. Agricultural losses alone are estimated to exceed 10.5 million USD, with limited insurance coverage for farmers amplifying the expected long-term impact. (Sources: NASA, Earth, University of Hawaii.) Following its fifth warmest January and second warmest February on record, Las Vegas obliterated its March temperature record with a monthly mean of 22.8°C, almost 7°C above the monthly average and an incredible 3.5°C above the previous record of 19.3°C set in March 2015. It was also warmer than any April in the city's record. The month was bookended by spells of record-breaking daily temperatures, including 12 consecutive record days towards the end of the month which culminated in a high of 36.7°C (98°F) on 28 March. Indeed, these 12 days, all of which registered on or above the 90°F mark, matched the entire number of days that 90°F or more was recorded in March between 2004 and 2025. Between 1937 and 2003, a March 90°F was recorded only once. Driven by a strong and slow-moving area of high pressure, colloquially referred to as a ‘heat dome’, this was of course in the context of a larger scale heatwave which affected the desert southwest of the USA. According to rapid attribution studies by Climate Central and World Weather Attribution, the overall extremity of the heatwave would have been virtually impossible without the contribution from human-induced climate change. With the previous warm winter having already led to a reduced snow-pack in mountainous areas, and rapid snowmelt occurring as a result, there are already fears for increased pressure on drinking water supplies and an increased risk of wildfires, similar to conditions following the March 2012 heatwave, which also came at the tail-end of a sequence of La Niña years. (Sources: NWS Las Vegas, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Yale Climate Connections, Climate Central.) Following the 48th session of the WMO RA-IV Hurricane Committee in Mexico City, it was confirmed that Melissa has been retired from the list of hurricane names which recur on a 6-yearly basis. Melissa (see December 2025 Weather News) killed over 90 people and was the strongest hurricane to ever make landfall on Jamaica – it was also upgraded in the NHC final analysis to 165kn, making it the joint strongest hurricane by wind speed ever observed in the Atlantic basin. Melissa will be replaced by Molly when the 2025 list comes around again in 2031. (Sources: WMO, NHC.) Whilst the closest most of us will have come to this phenomena is becoming briefly conjoined to a cold ice lolly, ‘tundra tongue’ (getting one's tongue stuck to a cold, usually metal, surface) has until recently been an understudied and poorly understood phenomenon. A couple of recent studies (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijporl.2026.112740 and https://doi.org/10.1186/s13005-025-00581-y) by Jarmund et al. have sought to remedy this and make for fascinating reading! Key findings include that the vast majority of reported cases involve children with a median age of 5.25 years, the majority of whom were boys. Whilst most cases did not result in significant injury, outcomes ranged from discomfort to hospital treatment, with frozen tongues, detachment injuries, and in one case potential for fatality due to becoming stuck to a frozen railway track. (Sources: International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology, Head & Face Medicine.)
Harris et al. (Fri,) studied this question.
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