In this paper, we introduce a new three-parameter distribution based on the combination of re-parametrization of the so-called EGNB2 and transmuted exponential distributions. This combination aims to modify the transmuted exponential distribution via the incorporation of an additional parameter, mainly adding a high degree of flexibility on the mode and impacting the skewness and kurtosis of the tail. We explore some mathematical properties of this distribution including the hazard rate function, moments, the moment generating function, the quantile function, various entropy measures and (reversed) residual life functions. A statistical study investigates estimation of the parameters using the method of maximum likelihood. The distribution along with other existing distributions are fitted to two environmental data sets and its superior performance is assessed by using some goodness-of-fit tests. As a result, some environmental measures associated with these data are obtained such as the return level and mean deviation about this level.