Wild weather: Multiple countries set summer heat records, haboob wreaks havoc in Arizona

CTV Edmonton's Josh Classen recaps a week of wild weather: record summer temperatures in several countires, Arizona's haboob, and flooding in Japan.

Here’s a look at some of the weather stories making headlines this past week.

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Hottest summer ever

The U.K. meteorological office has confirmed that the summer of 2025 is the hottest on record, with records dating back to 1884.

Meteorological summer runs from June 1 to the end of August.

This year’s average temperatures of 16.1 C beats the previous summer record of 15.8 C set in 2018.

The U.K.’s top five hottest summers have all be in the past 25 years.

China and Japan also recorded their hottest summers on record. For those regions, the past four summers have been the four hottest on record. Climatologists point to human-induced climate change as a main driver behind that heat.

Haboob blinds parts of Arizona

A massive dust storm created near-zero visibility in parts of Arizona.

It’s known as a haboob and it’s fairly common at this time of year in Arizona.

A haboob is created when cold air plunging out of a thunderstorm slams into the ground and kicks up massive amounts of desert dust.

Planes were grounded at Phoenix Sky Harbour Airport for about an hour.

The powerful wind knocked down trees and led to widespread power outages.

Record rain in Japan leads to flooding

Major flooding in parts of Japan after a record-setting 190 millimetres of rain.

That’s more rain in 24 hours than the average total rainfall for all of September in the region.

Multiple rivers overflowed, flooding homes and roads. Some bullet train services also had to be temporarily suspended.