India experienced extreme weather events on 99 per cent of the days in the first nine months of 2025, says CSE and Down To Earth’s Climate India 2025 report, an annual assessment of extreme weather events

The human and economic toll has been severe:

• 4,064 lives lost, marking a 48 per cent increase over four years.
• 47 million hectares of cropped area affected — a 400 per cent rise in four years.
• In 2025, at least 18 states/UTs recorded their highest number of extreme weather days since 2022.
• From February to September 2025, India recorded extreme weather across 30 or more states and Union Territories for eight consecutive months
• Himachal Pradesh sees highest number of extreme weather events; maximum number of fatalities in Madhya Pradesh
• The monsoon remains India’s most devastating season — with highest extreme weather days, since 2022. Of the 4,064 deaths recorded in 2025, 3,007 occurred during monsoon.
• Report released here today in an online webinar by Sunita Narain, director general of CSE and editor of Down To Earth 

Download the full report click here: 

Access the proceedings of the online release click here:  

New Delhi, November 19, 2025: India faced extreme weather events on 99 per cent of days in the first nine months of 2025, marked by heat and cold waves, lightning and storms, heavy rain, floods and landslides. These events claimed 4,064 lives, affected 9.47 million hectares of crops, destroyed 99,533 houses, and killed approximately 58,982 animals.

January to September 2025 saw a sharp surge in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events across India compared to the same period in the past three years. In contrast, during the same period in 2024—the previous worst year—such events occurred on 255 days, resulting in 3,238 deaths and losses across 3.2 million ha.

The report is published annually by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and Down To Earth, the fortnightly that CSE helps publish. Climate India 2025 assesses the period from January to September 2025 and is based on nearly 1,500 days of daily monitoring to highlight trends in extreme weather events across seasons.

Speaking at the launch of the report, CSE director general and Down To Earth editor Sunita Narain said: “Given the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events, the country no longer needs to count just the disasters. What we need to understand is the scale — the scale of mitigation that Belém is talking about, the scale on which the whole world has to come together. But it is also about what we need to do, keeping in mind that there will be more and more such disasters.”

Adds Narain: “Given this scale, we really must get the world to understand the urgency of mitigation. We have to reduce the amount of CO₂ we are pumping into the atmosphere, because no amount of adaptation is going to be possible with the scale of disasters we are now witnessing.” 

A year that has set 124-Year climate records

The year 2025 broke several climate records. January was India’s fifth driest since 1901, while February became the warmest in 124 years. In September, India recorded its seventh-highest mean temperature for the month, with the minimum temperature ranking as the fifth highest on record.

The impact on agriculture has been severe, with extreme weather affecting at least 9.47 million hectares of cropped land in 2025, a four-fold increase from the 1.84 million hectares damaged in 2022. This number likely underestimates the true damage, as data from major states such as West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh was unavailable, pointed out Down To Earth’s data analysts who have compiled the report. 

State and region-specific devastation

In 2025, at least 18 states/UTs recorded their highest number of extreme weather days since 2022.

Himachal Pradesh experienced extreme weather on almost 80 per cent of the 273 days in the first nine months of 2025, the most in the country. However, Madhya Pradesh recorded the highest fatalities at 532, followed by Andhra Pradesh (484 deaths) and Jharkhand (478 deaths).

Maharashtra was the worst hit in terms of cropped area affected, with an area of 8.4 million hectares, followed by Punjab (0.26 million ha) and Uttar Pradesh (0.21 million ha)

Regionally, the northwest experienced the highest frequency of extreme weather events in 2025, with 257 event days, followed by the east and northeast at 229 days. The northwest—which includes Punjab and the Himalayan states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, among others that made headlines for their devastating monsoon events—also saw the highest number of deaths: 1,342, followed by 1,093 in central India.

In the central region, although extreme weather events were recorded on 200 of the 273 days, it claimed 1,093 lives, damaged 8.42 million ha crop area.

What kind of extreme weather events have buffeted India?

Heavy rain, floods and landslides were the deadliest, accounting for 2,440 deaths, followed by lightning and storms (1,456), cloudbursts (135), heatwaves (21) and snowfall (12), between January and September 2025.

Seasonal patterns (2022-25)

Winter (January–February): Despite being drier than usual, the winter season   recorded 51 days of heavy rain, floods and landslides, pointing to localised, short but intense rainfall episodes. The season also recorded three heatwave days — the earliest such occurrence since 2022.

Pre-monsoon season (March–May): Heavy rain, floods and landslides were again the most frequent events — a shift from previous years when hailstorms, classified under lightning and storms, dominated. Heatwaves were reported in 19 states and UTs, including the Himalayan regions of Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.

Monsoon season (June to September): India witnessed extreme weather on all 122 monsoon days in 2025, spanning 35 states and Union Territories. For the fourth year in a row, monsoon remains the most devastating season, with at least one major disaster every single day since 2022.

Capital woes

Kohima, the capital of Nagaland, recorded higher-than-normal minimum temperatures on 98 per cent of monsoon days, the highest among 31 capitals analysed. It was followed by Diu in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (91 per cent), Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir (78 per cent), Patna in Bihar and Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh (70 per cent each), and Imphal in Manipur and Shimla in Himachal Pradesh (65 per cent each).

In 13 of the 34 capital cities analysed, maximum temperatures were above normal on more than half of the days during the monsoon months of June to September. Seven of these were capitals of Himalayan states and four belonged to coastal states and Union Territories.

Says Kiran Pandey, programme director of CSE’s environmental resources team and one of the writers of the report, “The rise in temperature during the monsoon is particularly concerning, as it disrupts the core dynamics of the monsoon system. This can trigger erratic and extreme weather events — from floods to droughts — while threatening agriculture, food security and public health.”

With the global average concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) from human activities recording the largest increase since measurement started in 1957, the world is experiencing perilously increasing extreme weather events – contrasting and in unusual geographies.

“We need to reimagine development. We can't just blame everything on climate change and its impacts,” adds Pandey.

Says Richard Mahapatra, managing editor of Down To Earth, “This report does not bring good news—but it brings a necessary warning. It demands recognition of nature’s mounting backlash and the urgent need for meaningful climate actions. Without decisive mitigation efforts, the disasters of today will become the new normal of tomorrow.”

For more details, interviews etc, please contact Sukanya Nair of The CSE Media Resource Centre, sukanya.nair@cseindia.org, 8816818864.