To accurately predict how the distribution of extreme events may change in the future we need to understand the mechanisms that influence such events in our current climate. This includes understanding how modes of natural climate variability, such as the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) impact the weather extremes. Our current observing system is not well-suited for observing extreme events globally due to the sparse sampling and in-homogeneity of ground-based in-situ observations and the infrequent revisit time of satellite observations. Observations of weather extremes, such as extreme precipitation events, temperature extremes, tropical and extra-tropical cyclones among others, with temporal resolution on the order of minutes and spatial resolution on the order of few kms (<;10 kms), are required for improved forecasting of extreme weather events.