Arctic blasts such as the recent one that temporarily froze iguanas in Florida and carried record cold as far south as Cuba are another example of extreme weather events exacerbated by the overheating planet.
A post on X by a Florida man covered in frozen iguanas went viral this week. His blanket was made up of iguanas that were stunned by record cold temperatures that swept across the United States. Flurries in Florida also made weather headlines over the weekend as Arctic air made it to the relatively warm Gulf of Mexico to squeeze out "ocean effect" snow in Tampa.
In Cuba, Indio Hatuey set a national low Tuesday at 32 degrees Fahrenheit.
These unusual occurrences may become more common in the warming world. "This is the thing we've talked about with climate change," New York Times senior meteorologist Judson Jones observed. "The extremes are going to be more extreme."
A historic winter storm that left a swath of snow along its nearly 2,000-mile path in January also produced snow in Texas. "These kinds of events don't happen despite a warming climate...they're connected to it, especially when it comes to ice and snow totals," Climate Central said.
It's complicated, but scientists say the overheating planet is disrupting the polar vortex and that this could be sending more frequent severe outbreaks of Arctic air southward into the mid-latitudes. The Arctic is warming as much as two to four times faster than the rest of the planet. Arctic sea ice extent reached its lowest level on record for December last year, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information.
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"This rapid Arctic warming has decisively altered the speed and shape of the jet stream and with it, the behavior of weather patterns around the Northern Hemisphere," the Woodwell Climate Research Center notes.
Cold weather isn't the only type of weather getting attention recently. The Los Angeles area flirted with record high temperatures Wednesday. Burbank's record of 86, as well as L.A.'s record of 84 and Long Beach's record of 87, were all within reach, according to the National Weather Service.
Juan de Nova Island in the Indian Ocean between Madagascar and Mozambique hit 95.9 degrees this week, the hottest February day in the French territory's history. Parts of Australia soared to nearly 122 degrees last week during a scorching heat wave. The heat kept nearly half of the crowds at the Australian Open tennis tournament home at one point.
The warming world is supercharging extreme weather events, exacerbating deadly heat waves, and amplifying droughts. The United States endured its third-highest number of billion-dollar climate and weather disasters in 2025. Worldwide, there were 55 billion-dollar weather disasters last year, and 2025 was the ninth straight year with at least 50 such events, according to Gallagher Re, a global reinsurance brokerage and advisory firm.
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