Interesting to see Dalls as a whipsaw weather city
these cities rank as the top 10 worldwide for the most severe "climate whiplash"**, according to a March 2025 WaterAid report analyzing hydroclimate data from 1980–2023 across over 100 major cities. Climate whiplash occurs when a location experiences intensifying extremes of both droughts (prolonged dry periods) and floods (extreme wet events), often in rapid succession, making water management and disaster preparedness far more challenging.
**Key shared traits include:**
- All show a marked increase in both extreme dry and extreme wet months over recent decades, driven by climate change amplifying the global water cycle—warmer air holds more moisture, leading to heavier downpours and more intense evaporation during dry spells.
- Six of the ten cities lie in Asia (three in China, two in Indonesia, one in Thailand), reflecting a strong concentration in East and Southeast Asia where monsoon systems are becoming more erratic.
- The remaining cities span North America (Dallas), the Middle East (Baghdad), Oceania (Canberra), and Africa (Addis Ababa), showing the phenomenon is global but hits certain regions harder.
- Most are large, densely populated urban areas where infrastructure was designed for historical weather patterns, leaving them highly vulnerable to these new swings.
### Geographical Distribution
| Rank | City | Country | Region/Continent | Approximate Latitude |
|------|-------------------|---------------|----------------------|----------------------|
| 1 | Hangzhou | China | East Asia | 30°N |
| 2 | Jakarta | Indonesia | Southeast Asia | 6°S |
| 3 | Dallas | USA | North America | 33°N |
| 4 | Shanghai | China | East Asia | 31°N |
| 5 | Baghdad | Iraq | Middle East | 33°N |
| 6 | Hefei | China | East Asia | 32°N |
| 7 | Canberra | Australia | Oceania | 35°S |
| 8 | Surabaya | Indonesia | Southeast Asia | 7°S |
| 9 | Bangkok | Thailand | Southeast Asia | 14°N |
| 10 | Addis Ababa | Ethiopia | East Africa | 9°N |
Noticeable patterns: several cities cluster around 30–35° latitude (Hangzhou, Shanghai, Hefei, Dallas, Baghdad, Canberra), where subtropical high-pressure systems can create pronounced dry seasons that are now being disrupted, while the tropical cities (Jakarta, Surabaya, Bangkok) are seeing intensified monsoon variability.
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The March 2025 WaterAid report, titled *Water and Climate: Rising Risks for Urban Populations* and produced in collaboration with researchers from Cardiff University and Utrecht University, analyzed the 100 most populous cities globally (plus 12 additional cities where WaterAid operates) using the Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI). This index combines monthly precipitation and potential evapotranspiration data from 1980–2023 (split into two 21-year periods for comparison: roughly 1980–2001 vs. 2002–2023).
Cities were classified as experiencing **climate whiplash** if they recorded at least five additional months of both extreme wet and extreme dry conditions in the recent period. Seventeen cities met this threshold; the ten listed in the query are the most severely affected according to the report’s severity ranking (as explicitly detailed in coverage from the Daily Mail and corroborated across multiple sources).
The underlying driver is straightforward: global heating increases atmospheric moisture capacity by ~7% per 1°C of warming. This supercharges heavy rainfall events while also increasing evaporation rates during dry periods, creating sharper swings. The report notes that 90% of all climate-related disasters are now water-related (floods or droughts), and such events have become four times more common over the past 50 years.
Regionally, South and Southeast Asia emerge as the clearest hotspot for both wetting trends and whiplash, with monsoon dynamics becoming more unstable. East Africa and parts of the Middle East/Australia are also seeing amplified variability. Interestingly, while Europe is experiencing widespread drying (Madrid, Paris, Berlin, etc.), and some cities have “flipped” dramatically from historically wetter to drier conditions (e.g., Cairo, Riyadh) or vice versa (e.g., Lucknow, Surat), the whiplash cities are those that did not flip but instead got hit by escalating extremes on both ends simultaneously.
The report emphasizes that these ten cities exemplify the growing unpredictability of urban water security. Places that once had reliable wet or dry seasons now face back-to-back crises: a severe drought followed immediately by catastrophic flooding (or vice versa), leaving little recovery time and straining reservoirs, sewage systems, and agriculture. For example, Hangzhou has seen record heatwaves alongside major floods; Jakarta battles both chronic drought risk and deadly seasonal inundation; Dallas has endured extreme flash floods and multi-year droughts in quick succession.
In summary, the strongest commonality is not a single climate zone or geographic feature but the shared exposure to intensifying hydroclimate volatility under climate change, with these ten cities exhibiting the most pronounced signals globally as of 2025.
**Key Citations**
- WaterAid (2025). *Water and Climate: Rising Risks for Urban Populations*. washmatters.wateraid.org
- Daily Mail (2025). Revealed: The cities that have been hit with 'climate whiplash'. dailymail.co.uk
- The Guardian (2025). ‘Global weirding’: climate whiplash hitting world’s biggest cities, study reveals. theguardian.com
- Reuters (2025). Cities face 'whiplash' of floods, droughts as temperatures rise, study warns. reuters.com
- WaterAid UK Press Release (2025). Global cities most vulnerable to extreme climate shifts revealed in new WaterAid report. wateraid.org
data compiled by Grok 4.1
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