Tornadoes, droughts, wildfires and floods, once rare events are now becoming the new normal. Extreme weather occurrences, temperature fluctuations, and more numerous hurricanes are common.

This year, as an example, is one of the most extreme weather years with 46% of the U.S. experiencing either abnormally wet or dry conditions. Sixteen percent of the country had higher than normal one-day average precipitation events, also a new record.

The March-to-May period set precipitation records in 10 states and the Pacific Northwest. The Ohio Valley alone is at 300% of normal. Thirteen hundred daily precipitation records were broken in April in the Midwest and the South. Seventy-two locations reported the wettest day ever in April.

In the lower Mississippi Valley, 6.8 million acres were flooded including over one million acres of farmland in Arkansas and 900,000 acres in Mississippi. Total losses reached $4 billion. And that's not all the reported damage. In Dubuque, Iowa, 7.47 inches of rain fell on July 27, a one-day record. Chicago had the wettest day on record in July with 11.15 inches of rain recorded. Tens of thousands lost power.

Around the globe, July was a tough month. Floods and mudslides in China destroyed 700 homes in one province and dislocated 1.57 million people in seven provinces from heavy rains.

In Northeast India 200,000 were evacuated and 80 lives were lost. In South Korea, Seoul was inundated with 11.8 inches of rain on July 27 killing 67 people. Floods in Pakistan affected 4 million. Similar stories from Iran to Brazil are common.

Meanwhile, 32 inches of snow fell in one the driest places on earth, the Atacama Desert in Northern Chile, a place of near zero precipitation. The storm was accompanied by a severe temperature drop to 18 degrees in Santiago. Nine feet of snow fell between July 17 and 20 in the city of Longquimay.

While drought zones are declared across England and Wales with soils drier than those in Egypt, Scotland had its wettest ever May. The warmest spring in 100 years was followed by the coldest British winter in over 300 years.

In 2010, two-thirds of the European continent experienced the hottest summer in over 500 years. While the rate of volcanoes and earthquakes remains constant, disasters caused by flooding and storms has increased from around 133 per year in 1980 to over 350 today. All trends suggest long-term change is underway as greenhouse gases build in the atmosphere.

Here in the U.S., massive dust storms called haboobs roared over Phoenix twice in July, reaching 5,000 to 6,000 feet in height and over 50 miles wide. Fifty-mile per hour gusts produced zero visibility and knocked out power to the region. Texas had the driest month on record with the most fires losses in 2011 on record. In fact, the U.S. as a whole had the most wildfires on record in April.

Extreme drought set in from Arizona to New Mexico to Texas and along the Gulf coastline into the Florida Panhandle setting records along the way. The driest March-to-May period ever was experienced in the Rio Grande Valley. El Paso went 110 days without any rain at all. Insured losses in Texas reach $150 million while 1.8 million acres burned. Livestock losses exceed $1 billion. Farmer John Butcher of Lubbock put it this way: “It's dry like we have never seen it….we may lose everything.”

Between March and May there were 875 tornadoes in the U.S., the most on record, leaving 525 dead. In Joplin, Mo., 151 people lost their lives on May 22 and much of the city was destroyed. While tornadoes raged, the hurricane season left much of the southeastern U.S. and East Coast severely damaged from flooding. Losses are expected to exceed $12 billion. As the power and frequency of Atlantic hurricanes increases substantially, storm tracks are shifting ever northward, threatening the largest cities on the East Coast and Atlantic provinces of Canada.

Worldwide, this has been the warmest decade on record. Last year, average temperatures matched those from 2005, the warmest year on record. In 2006, over 100,000 fires were reported and 10 million acres burned. Most of North America has had more hot days and nights and fewer cool days and nights and fewer frost days. Excessive heat in July in the Eastern two-thirds of the U.S. was relentless. Heat indexes reached over 110 degrees F across huge swaths of the region with eight weather stations exceeding 120 degrees F. Newton, Iowa, reported a one-day temperature of 129 degrees F. In 2010, 17 countries experienced record temperatures.

Effective and widespread solutions for catastrophic weather events cannot be generated unless we recognize that extreme weather events are on the rise and play a significant role in our future.

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Jeff Evans writes on renewable energy and sustainable living issues and can be reached at jeff.ecolife@gmail.com.