The summer of 2018 has been noteworthy for the all-time heat records smashed around the world, from California to Sweden and Japan.
Why it matters: The heat is a sign of a warming world, scientists have said, with human-caused global warming raising the odds of heat waves as well as increasing their severity and duration.
Typhoons Soulik and Cimaron are both on collision courses with highly populated areas of Southeast Asia, including Southwest Japan and the Korean Peninsula. The storms will hit one after the other, possibly battering two massive Asian economies on the same day.
What to expect: Typhoon Soulik is up first and is forecast to deliver a fierce blow to Japan's Rykyu Islands in the next two days, before curving north-northwestward to make landfall in South Korea on August 22 or 23. The storm is the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane with maximum sustained winds estimated at 115 miles per hour, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center.
More than 350 people have been killed and thousands are still stranded by historic flooding in the southern Indian state of Kerala, per the BBC, as a result of relentless monsoon rains.
The big picture: The massive floods paralyzed the region's infrastructure, perhaps most dramatically illustrated by the scene at Cochin International Airport, the fourth-largest in India, with floodwaters up to the wings of jets still parked there.
