The Most Bizarre Weather Events in History

Hurricane Helene recently hit the southern region of the United States and wreaked intense havoc and destruction. The Category 4 hurricane was the most intense storm in history to hit Florida's Big Bend region, leveling homes and towns and creating floods and mudslides. Other storms, like this and others similar, have led to some of the most bizarre weather events in history.

Storms like Helene, and weather in general, are typically unpredictable, and atmospheric scientists, and meteorologists, are dedicated to predicting weather phenomena like this and others. Technological advances have allowed these forecasts to be rather dependable but sometimes, weather events transpire that leave even the most seasoned meteorologists scratching their heads.

Major weather events like Helene used to be less frequent, but according to the Environmental Defense Fund, they are becoming more common in warmer climates, and are three times more frequent than a century ago. Not every extreme weather event – like volcanic eruptions – is tied to climate change, but as time goes on, it will affect us more and more — even those of us who aren't in areas typically affected by extreme weather.

A perfect example is Hurricane Sandy, which hit New York City head-on in 2012. This region rarely sees storms of this kind; per NYC.gov, hurricane winds impact the New York City area every 19 years, and major hurricanes (Category 3 or higher) are felt every 74 years.

Some of these bizarre weather events were so extreme that they even changed the course of history.

The 1816 eruption of Indonesia's Mount Tambora did a number on basically the whole world's climate. It's called The Year Without a Summer because the huge amounts of ash spewed into the atmosphere caused extreme cold and widespread crop failures in Europe and North America, even snow in June.

This massive Wisconsin forest fire swept through a swath of the northeastern part of the state on October 8, 1871. The deadliest wildfire in recorded history, it burned about 1.2 million acres and killed an estimated 1,500 to 2,500 people. It got its name because the fire was so big that it created its own weather patterns, including fire tornadoes.

The Eastern Seaboard was completely paralyzed by a freak snowstorm in March 1888, which dropped up to 58 inches of snow and was exacerbated by wind gusts of more than 45 miles an hour, causing snowdrifts more than 50 feet tall. Railroads were shut down and telegraph cables destroyed, forcing people to be confined to their homes for a week. Overhead cables in affected cities were buried underground afterward.

The massive hurricane that hit the then-major Texas city of Galveston in 1900 is the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history. With a massive storm surge and high winds, it walloped the city, causing widespread devastation and killing an estimated 8,000 to 12,000 people.

In 1908, a comet or asteroid struck Siberia with a force equivalent to a giant thermonuclear bomb. Two thousand square kilometers of forest were flattened by the massive explosion, and the area is still feeling its effects today. Needless to say, it would have been much worse if it had struck a populated area.

On March 18, 1925, an outbreak of 12 tornadoes hit a large portion of the midwestern and southern United States, making it the deadliest tornado outbreak in U.S. history and one of the worst in world history. Missouri, Illinois, and Kansas got the worst of it, with nearly 700 people killed.

Drought and poor agricultural practices combined to disastrous effect in the 1930s, when massive dust storms led to massive crop failures, displaced thousands of families and resulted in economic hardship for millions of people, especially farmers.

The devastating floods that resulted from the Yangtze River overflowing its banks due to monsoon rains and snowmelt in 1931 killed up to four million people, making it history's deadliest known natural disaster by death toll.

One of the deadliest and most destructive tropical cyclones to ever strike the United States, the New England Hurricane of 1938 was a surprise Category 3 hurricane that made landfall on Long Island on September 21. It killed 682 people and caused widespread damage. It remains the most powerful and deadliest hurricane in recorded New England history.

A combination of cold weather, windless conditions, and coal burning led to a bizarre natural phenomenon over London in 1952, in which toxic smog settled over the city for several days. An estimated 12,000 people died as a result of the event.

A series of severe winter storms hit Iran in early February 1972, dropping as much as 26 feet of snow and completely burying some 200 villages in a swath of land the size of Wisconsin. It resulted in the deaths of a reported 4,000 people, making it the deadliest blizzard in recorded history.

Snow in the Sahara Desert does happen, but it is extremely uncommon and one of the strangest weather events. This weather phenomenon happened several times in recent history: In 1979 in southern Algeria, and in both 2017 and 2018 it fell near the Algerian town of Aïn Séfra.

A massive hailstorm hit the country of Bangladesh in 1986, causing widespread damage and destroying crops. It's notable for the sheer size of the hail. The hailstones themselves weighed up to 2.2 pounds, making it the heaviest hailstorm of all time. It resulted in the deaths of 92 people.

In a truly bizarre event, back in 1986, there was a mass die-off of 1,700 people and thousands of heads of livestock in villages surrounding Lake Nyos in Cameroon. After an investigation, it was determined that the cause was a limnic eruption, in which a large cloud of carbon dioxide was released from the lake, suffocating everything in its path.

Mount Pinatubo, in the Philippines' Luzon Volcanic Arc, erupted dramatically in April 1991. It was the second-largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century (behind only the 1912 eruption of Novarupta in Alaska). The massive release of volcanic ash and aerosols into the atmosphere caused global temperatures to drop by about 1°F for several years.

Over the course of two months in 2001, a bizarre reddish-colored rain fell down on the Indian state of Kerala. Initially thought to have gotten its color due to desert dust, it was later determined that the real culprit was unidentified microbial activity.

Hail is a fairly common (if bizarre) occurrence, but the hailstorm that fell in the tropical Bolivian city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra in 2002 was decidedly off the charts. More than five feet of hail fell on the city, causing widespread damage.

A tornado that struck the Oklahoma city of El Reno in 2013 has the distinction of being the widest tornado ever recorded, with a diameter of about 2.6 miles across. Thankfully its path largely avoided populated areas, so it resulted in relatively few fatalities.

The strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere and the strongest globally in terms of one-minute maximum sustained winds, Hurricane Patricia grew from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane in just 24 hours (a near-record pace) and had sustained winds of 215 miles per hour.

Thankfully, it weakened significantly before making landfall in Mexico. It's easily ranks among the most destructive storms in history.