Extraordinary heat waves, enormous drought-driven forestfires, raging storms, torrential downpours and massive floods. A rising wave of extreme weather events is sweeping the planet. In the first 11 months of 1998, the world saw almost $90 billion in weather-related damage, half again more than the previous record set just two years before and more economic damage in a single year than in all the years of the 1980s combined. The most destructive year in weather history was also the hottest since people began taking regular thermometer readings in 1860, and probably the hottest in 1,200 years.