Weather of 2003

The deadliest event of the year was a European heatwave that killed 72,210 people, which broke several nationwide temperature records.

The year began with El Niño conditions, which meant that sea surface temperatures over the equator over the eastern Pacific Ocean were anomalously warm.

The heat and drought killed 72,210 people across 15 countries, making it the sixth deadliest disaster worldwide in the first two decades of the 21st century.

[5][6][18] In the northern Indian Ocean, there were five cyclonic storms, including one in May that produced flooding across Sri Lanka, killing 260 people.

[23] In January, high winds and lightning ignited bushfires in Canberra, Australia's capital city, which burned 70% of the territory's nature areas before being contained.