Extremes are also of continual concern amongst policy and decision makers, and in the media, because of the devastating impacts that can result from their occurrence. As high- lighted in the recent IPCC Special Reporton “Managing the risks of extreme events and disasters to advance climate change and adaptation” (SREX), climate extremes are by definition rare, often difficult to define, not well observed, and posesubstantial challenges in their characterization (IPCC, 2012;Seneviratneetal.,2012).