parching

On the other hand, when the sponge dries out, it has even more capacity to suck up moisture from the soil and plants below, parching the landscape and turning it into tinder.

A parching lack of rainfall extended the fire season into the normally wet month of January.

This manifested throughout 2024 in so-called “weird weather,” from unusually extreme hurricanes and floods to intense heat waves, parching droughts and unprecedented wildfires.

Warm weather already appears to be parching vegetation and making it more flammable, as the many blazes that began over the past few days have shown.

While human-made climate change has spurred more erratic weather globally, there is something else parching southern Africa this year.