Floods, Storms to Worsen as Global Heating Continues, WMO Warns

By: Abudu Olalekan

The rain came in sheets. Streets turned to rivers. In Bali, 45-year-old fisherman Wayan stood ankle-deep in murky water, staring at his flooded home. “Last year, the water rose to my knees. This time? It took my boat,” he said. “What’s next?”

The UN’s World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has an answer: more. “No end in sight,” warned Secretary-General Celeste Saulo on September 18, 2025. “Water-related hazards are devastating lives. Pakistan. South Sudan. Bali. Unfortunately, this trend isn’t stopping.”

2024 marked the third straight year of brutal glacial loss. The numbers are mind-numbing: 450 gigatonnes of ice vanished. That’s a seven-kilometer cube of ice. Or 180 million Olympic pools. Enough to nudge sea levels up 1.2 millimeters. “Putting hundreds of millions at risk of coastal floods,” the WMO said.

And it’s not just the glaciers. 2024 was the hottest year in 175 years of records. Temperatures hit 1.55°C above pre-industrial levels. Hotter air holds more moisture. So when storms hit? They hit harder.

Take Storm Boris. In September 2024, it pummeled central Europe. Rivers in the Czech Republic swelled to levels “statistically every 100 years,” said WMO hydrologist Stefan Uhlenbrook. “But these ‘centuries’ events? They’re happening more often. Stats don’t lie—extremes are becoming routine.”

The WMO report paints a dire picture:

Wetter-than-normal conditions in central Africa, Pakistan, southern Iran.
Flash floods in South Sudan displaced thousands.
Pakistan’s monsoon rains drowned villages, reviving memories of 2022’s catastrophic floods.
But it’s not just rain. Dry spells are worsening too. Soil moisture? Plummeting. Groundwater? Depleting. “Water’s a tug-of-war,” Saulo said. “Too much here, too little there. And the whole world feels the ripple.”

In the Himalayas, glacial retreat threatens rivers that feed millions. In coastal towns, rising seas inch closer. “We’re racing against time,” said Dr. Maria Chen, a climate scientist in Manila. “Communities can’t adapt fast enough.”

Back in Bali, Wayan’s daughter, Ayu, 12, waded through knee-deep water to salvage textbooks from her school. “The teacher said it’s ‘climate change,’” she shrugged. “But what does that even mean?”

It means, the WMO says, that disasters once deemed “once-in-a-lifetime” could soon feel normal. That the rain won’t stop. That the storms won’t spare.

But there’s a sliver of hope. The report stresses better data-sharing on streamflow, groundwater, and water quality. “We’re flying blind in some regions,” Saulo admitted. “Without data, we can’t predict. Can’t prepare.”

For now, though, the message is clear: The world’s water cycle is broken. And until emissions drop, the floods and storms will only get worse.

Wayans’s son, Kadek, 8, splashed in the floodwater, unaware. “He thinks it’s a game,” Wayan sighed. “But it’s not. It’s our future.”