Hurricanes, fires, floods, and drought, the top climate and weather stories of 2020

With only three days remaining in the year about to end, it's time I take care of some business I promised I would get to in Colbert, Corden, and Fallon run down 2020.

Colbert...mentioned the record setting Atlantic hurricane season, which I promised I might get to in Post-election pandemic update — 10 million total U.S. cases, record daily cases, COVID-19 vaccine, and transition team task force but haven't yet. That's still on my to-do list for this year, so be patient.

Without any further ado, I present this year's edition of the year in climate beginning with The Weather Channel's RECAP: The 2020 Hurricane Season.

November 30th marks the official end of hurricane season. Though activity past this date is still possible (and 2020 has thrown plenty of curveballs...), let's go ahead and recap this record-breaking, catastrophic, please-let-it-be-over season.

Fortunately, the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season actually did end by the official completion date. For once, 2020 did not have an additional unpleasant surprise, unlike 2005, when Tropical Storm Zeta formed on December 30, 2005.

The record-breaking Atlantic hurricane season may have been my top climate and weather story of 2020, but there were plenty of others, such as this year's western wildfires. Weather Nation covered those and more in its Top 10 Weather Events of 2020.

Meteorologist Joe Astolfi takes a look back at the Top 10 Weather Events of 2020.

In addition to the hurricanes and fires, floods, drought, tornadoes, a nor'easter, and a derecho all made the top ten.

All of the above looked at natural disasters as weather but they make more sense in the context of climate, particularly climate change. In addition, both focused on the Western Hemisphere, particularly the United States. For a global climate examination, watch From Hurricanes To Wildfires, 2020's Biggest Climate Headlines by NBC News.

NBC News’ Simone Boyce takes look back at this year’s most important climate-related events.

It's been such a long and eventful year that I had to be reminded that it started off with wildfires in Australia. Those ended up being only a foretaste of what was to come.

That's it for the year about to end's climate and weather. Stay tuned for two more retrospectives of 2020.