Colombia’s tropical summer—the dry season spanning June, July, and August—has turned into an unusually wet period period marked by heavy rains, thunderstorms, landslides, and flash floods that have claimed dozens of lives across various regions of the country. The situation has also led to widespread road closures and the loss of hundreds of homes.
The climate emergency, which has already left a trail of destruction in homes, rural roads, and crops, is closely linked to the La Niña phenomenon. Its effects are now being felt intensely after an extremely dry 2024.
In departments like Antioquia, Cundinamarca, Santander, Tolima, Risaralda, and Cauca, downpours have been relentless. The Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology, and Environmental Studies (IDEAM) has issued multiple alerts for landslide and river overflow risks. In some municipalities, rainfall has exceeded historical averages for this time of year by more than 200%.
An atypical summer drenched by rain in Colombia
One of the most dramatic cases occurred several weeks ago in Bello, a municipality near Medellín. Recorded heavy rains triggered a landslide affecting a cluster of houses on a mountainside. The final result: 25 dead and 5 people still missing after two weeks.
A similar event happened in El Carmen de Atrato, in the department of Chocó, where an avalanche buried several homes and claimed six lives, including two minors.
“The ground was saturated. Within seconds, the mountain came down. We heard a roar and then, only screams,” recounted Rosa Martínez, a survivor of the tragedy. “It’s not the first time it’s rained like this in July, but never with this intensity or for so many days in a row.”
This very Friday morning, heavy rains forced authorities to completely close traffic on the highway from Bogotá to Villavicencio due to the imminent danger of “multiple landslides.”
The mid-year season was typically marked by clear skies and higher temperatures, but in 2025 the country is experiencing a profound climate distortion.
IDEAM experts attribute the phenomenon to La Niña, an anomaly in the global climate system characterized by the cooling of equatorial Pacific waters, which intensifies rainfall across much of South America.
“La Niña established itself forcefully in mid-June, and we expect its impact to extend into the first quarter of 2026. It’s a moderate event, but it has coincided with local conditions favoring atmospheric instability,” explained Yolanda González, director of IDEAM. “What’s worrying is that these extreme climate changes are becoming more frequent and less predictable.”
From rationing to overflow
The change is especially striking when compared to the situation in 2024, when Colombia faced one of the worst droughts of the last two decades.
Reservoir levels fell to historic lows in several cities, but the most complex situation was particularly felt in Bogotá. Conditions became so severe that the nation’s capital implemented unprecedented scheduled cuts in the potable water supply.
The Magdalena River reached alarmingly low levels, affecting river transport and fishing, while the Amazon River’s flow decreased by up to 90% in some stretches.
“We went from rationing to overflow in less than a year,” comments Luis Torres, a hydrologist at the National University. “It’s the clearest manifestation of an unbalanced climate system. Today, our infrastructure is unprepared for both scarcity and excess.”
The effects of the current wave of rains extend beyond landslides and loss of life. Thousands of families have seen their coffee, plantain, cassava, and potato crops wiped out by floods or damaged by moisture saturation. Rural roads have vanished under mud, isolating dozens of rural villages.
In Bogotá, although rains haven’t been as intense as in other regions, authorities report damage in vulnerable neighborhoods, where substandard housing makes them especially fragile against persistent rainfall. The Water and Sewer Company has had to intervene at over 200 points due to storm drain blockages and creek overflows.
Colombia maintains red alert in 14 departments for rains
The government has declared a red alert in 14 departments and mobilized resources for emergency response. However, experts warn about the need to change the risk management approach in a country that continues to react rather than prevent.
“La Niña rains are no surprise, but land-use plans still allow construction in high-risk zones, and early warning systems are neither properly funded nor coordinated,” states Claudia Rodríguez, a geologist at the Javeriana University Environmental Observatory.
In many affected areas, communities report that humanitarian aid takes days to arrive, leaving them to face the consequences of the rains without shelter or food.
All this is occurring during months when rainfall is supposed to diminish significantly until around September, when the winter rainy season would normally resume.
Meanwhile, further north in countries like the U.S. and Europe, wildfires are devouring thousands of hectares, fueled by intense heat waves that have caused dozens of deaths in nations like France, Spain, and Italy.
The new face of climate in Colombia?
For climatologists, what is happening in 2025 is a preview of what could become a new normal under global climate change.
Transitions between periods of extreme drought and devastating rainfall will become faster and more violent, testing not only the country’s physical infrastructure but also its institutional capacity to adapt.
“Climate variability is part of our tropical reality, but global warming is exacerbating it,” maintains González of IDEAM. “If we don’t take structural measures—like updating our drainage systems, protecting watersheds, and strengthening environmental education—what we see today as ‘extreme events’ will become part of the regular landscape.”
Meanwhile, thousands of Colombians continue living amid uncertainty and mud, watching their daily lives transform under a sky that, in the height of summer, refuses to stop crying.