Pictures: Extreme weather events of 2021 so far

Fires raged, rivers flooded, the ice melted, droughts baked, storms brewed, temperatures soared, and people died. Climate change in 2021 reshaped life on planet Earth through extreme weather. Above, In this Aug. 17, 2021, file photo, embers light up hillsides as the Dixie Fire burns near Milford in Lassen County, Calif.

A train passes a railroad crossing surrounded by floodwaters from rain and melting snow in Nidderau near Frankfurt, Germany, on February 3, 2021.

Cyclone Seroja brought devastating floods and landslides to East Timor and Indonesia, killing hundreds in its wake before making landfall in Australia, the first storm to do so since 1989.

A rare snowstorm wreaked havoc across Spain in January. In Madrid, 150,000 trees were felled as 50 cm of snow were dumped on the capital, cutting supply lines, suspending flights and leaving some supermarket shelves bare.

A man watches as wildfires approach Kochyli beach near Limni village on the island of Evia, about north of Athens, Greece, on Aug. 6, 2021.

The Bootleg Fire, Oregon’s third-largest wildfire in recorded history and the second-largest U.S. wildfire of the year burned over 400,000 acres before being contained.

As fires stoked by hot winds swept through southern Italy in August, a monitoring station in Sicily reported temperatures of 48.8 Celsius (119.84°F) which some scientists believe could be the highest in European history.

Over three days in July, 24.3 inches of rain fell in Zhengzhou, China, nearly equivalent to its annual average, causing widespread damage and disruption in a city that is a major transport and industrial hub.

Wildfires tearing through forested areas of northern Algeria killed at least 65 people, as the country battled some of the most destructive blazes in its history.

Aletsch Glacier on August 25, 2021. Swiss glaciers lost 1percent of their volume in 2021 despite abundant snow and a cool summer due to climate change, the Swiss Academy of Natural Sciences revealed on October 19, 2021.

Damage in Grand Isle, La., caused by the high winds of Hurricane Ida, on Sept. 2, 2021. Increasingly dire reports of more frequent natural disasters have hammered home the realization that climate change is affecting real estate much sooner than expected.

A house is surrounded by flood waters in Londonderry on the outskirts of Sydney, Australia, Tuesday, March 23, 2021. Hundreds of people were rescued from floodwaters that have isolated dozens of towns in Australia's most populous state of New South Wales and forced thousands to evacuate their homes as record rain continues to inundate the countries east coast.

An aerial view of the aftermath of tropical Cyclone Shaheen in al-Khaburah city of Oman's al-Batinah region on October 4, 2021.

The July 12-15 rainfall over Europe triggered flooding that swept away houses and power lines, and left more than 200 people dead, mostly in Germany. Dozens died in Belgium and thousands were also forced to flee their homes in the Netherlands.

In this Sept. 2, 2021, file photo, vehicles are submerged in water during flooding in Philadelphia in the aftermath of downpours and high winds from the remnants of Hurricane Ida that hit the area.

Several people in the town of Erftstadt, southwest of Cologne, died after their houses collapsed due to subsidence.

A powerful winter storm engulfed the U.S. Northeast in February, blanketing much of the region in heavy snow, blasting coastal areas with high winds and bringing New York City and other major urban centers to nearly a standstill.

Lake Mead, the reservoir created by the Hoover Dam, an engineering marvel that symbolized the American ascendance of the 20th Century, sunk to its lowest level ever, underscoring the gravity of the extreme drought across the U.S. West.