Electricity monopoly RAO Unified Energy System of Russia said Tuesday that the sharp drop in temperature had caused no supply disruptions in Moscow. But NTV television reported that power was cut off to nearly 30 towns and villages in Ryazan region southwest of Moscow, and that there were also problems in the Volga River region of Samara.

Chief executive Anatoly Chubais has threatened to reduce supplies to nonessential points if temperatures stay below minus-25 C (minus-13 F) for three days or more. NTV reported that in Moscow, the first items to be shut off if necessary would be electric-lit advertising billboards.

The national meteorological office RosHydroMet has forecast the current cold front to keep temperatures at or below present levels at least until Friday.

Russian media reported that police were under orders to make an exception to their usual practice of evicting homeless people from the subway, building entrances and other shelters.

The Interfax news agency reported that 107 people had died of exposure in Moscow since October.

Prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into alleged negligence by prison officials in the Russian Far East village of Takhtamygda, where the heating system broke down and the more than 800 inmates had to use makeshift wood-burning stoves to keep warm for more than a week, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported Tuesday.

Investigators said prison officials had failed to obey instructions to keep a backup pump engine for the heating plant.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/01/17/D8F6ITJ08.html

"Only two such deep freezes have occurred in the past 100 years" in the western, "European" portion of Russia, the daily Gazeta said. "Once in 1940 and once in 1979, when the temperature fell to minus 40 degrees C" (minus 40 F).

Daytime temperatures in Moscow hovered around minus 30 C Thursday while they were expected to sink to around minus 37 C in the capital and closer to minus 40 C in the surrounding countryside overnight Thursday to Friday.

Weather forecasters predicted a relative warming trend over the weekend -- when temperatures could "warm" to an average of minus 20 C -- but said the Arctic cold was likely to set in again next week and last through January.

Another cold front was expected to settle over western Russia and "the deep freeze may continue in the capital until the end of January," Gazeta said, quoting the Fobos weather forecasting center.

In Moscow, city medical authorities said that seven people died as a result of exposure to the cold while another 25 people were hospitalized with hypothermia, Interfax news agency reported. A total of 93 people sought medical attention.

There were no immediate reports of casualties from cold from other cities and towns in Russia also experiencing unusually frigid weather.

Authorities however said they would continue a "strict" energy conservation regime including power cuts to non-essential factories and Moscow municipal authorities recommended that employers give staff days off on Thursday and Friday to save energy.

Meanwhile concern continued in Russia and Europe after the state-run energy giant Gazprom confirmed it had scaled back gas shipments to clients in Europe as a result of the extraordinary demand.

Gazprom said it was fulfilling all contractual obligations but said it was not immediately able to meet demand over and above those levels due to surging consumption in Russia itself.

Italy was particularly affected by the cutback in Russian gas supply and Italian Industry Minister Claudio Scajola called an emergency meeting with energy companies to discuss the situation.

The ITAR-TASS news agency meanwhile reported that production at the Noyabrskneftegaz oil field in Russia's far north region of Yamalo-Nenetskiy region had been halted as a result of the cold.

Temperatures there were at an all-time record low of minus 61 C (minus 78 F).

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060119/ts_afp/russiaweathercoldenergy_060119074714

The heaviest accumulation Tuesday was more than a foot in the Lubbock area, where the storm closed four roads and left 10,000 to 15,000 homes without electricity.

The Texas Panhandle saw as many as 8 inches, according to the National Weather Service.

"The snow is extremely wet and heavy, and it came with bad wind," National Weather Service meteorologist Shawn Ellis said.

Many of the outages came when wind gusts up to 45 mph caused tree limbs to break and knock out power lines, Ellis said. [...]

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/10093133.htm?1c

Most towns have registered at least 20 millimetres of rainfall less than their averages, a figure that will no doubt raise the blood pressure of farmers heading in to harvest.

In 1991 Murray Bridge received 1.8mm, Kar-oonda 2mm and Meningie 0.8mm.

This season's dry spell may mean yields for many farmers will reach only 25 per cent of those in 2003.

Not only has the region missed out on vital rain, but it has also experienced extremely hot weather, including the hottest October day ever recorded (records date back to 1966), on October 12, when it reached 39.7 degrees.

http://murraybridge.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=news&subclass=local&category=general%20news&story_id=348567&y=2004&m=11

At least 17 weather-related deaths were reported over the weekend.

Moscow's death toll from Siberian temperatures jumped to at least 79 after three more people froze to death overnight Saturday. Another 20 were hospitalised with hypothermia, the Interfax news agency said.

Temperatures in the Russian capital eased slightly to about minus 18 Celsius (minus 0.4 Fahrenheit), after reaching as low as minus 23 C (minus 9.4 F) overnight.

In Estonia, where temperatures fell to minus 26 C in the southeastern part of the Baltic nation, several fires were caused by overheating, killing two people Sunday.

Fire engines from the Soviet era had to be taken out of mothballs as they were more effective in resisting the icy temperatures.

Two more people died from cold in Lithuania over the weekend, bringing the total to eight and about 100 fires were caused by faulty heaters.

Three elderly people also died in Ukraine, raising the total to 21 deaths since temperatures dropped at the start of last week.

Five deaths from hypothermia were reported in neighbouring Poland, where rail and road traffic was seriously disrupted Sunday, bringing the total of people to have died from the cold since October to 127

In Turkey, a man died of exposure after walking in snow-covered mountains in the north of the country, the Anatolia news agency said.

And in eastern Germany, a man died in a pile-up caused by black ice.

Across the northern swathe of Europe, from Russia across the Baltics to the Scandinavian states, authorities sought to keep energy supplies running, road and rail traffic circulating and health authorities alerted in the midst of the extreme conditions.

In the Moscow region, authorities resolved a number of cases of failed heat supplies to homes and traffic problems caused by heavy snowfall, news reports said, while regions struggled to keep ageing heating systems operational.

Forecasters there said temperatures would fall on Monday to minus 24 C (minus 11.2 F) but would rise later in the week to minus 12 C (minus 10.4 F) on Thursday.

In Turkey, heavy snowfall swept across the north and east on Saturday, isolating more than 3,600 villages and cutting off electricity supplies to hundreds of others.

Rescuers took more than 11 hours to transport a sick woman to the nearest hospital 50 kilometres (30 miles) away.

Elsewhere, cold conditions provoked large numbers of road accidents.

The cold front reached eastern parts of Germany overnight Saturday with temperatures dropping from freezing to minus 19 C in less than 24 hours.

Icy roads also caused many accidents in the Czech Republic, including a crash between three cars that injured seven people in the east of the country.

In Sweden, at least 500 car accidents were reported due to difficult driving conditions.

In Denmark, snow and ice shut down Copenhagen's airport for several hours on Friday and Scandinavia's main airline SAS cancelled 144 flights on Saturday. but air traffic was returning to normal on Sunday.

Gas supplies to several European countries have also been disrupted as Russian officials concentrated on ensuring supplies for Russian households.

Poland's national gas company said deliveries were reduced to major industries to ensure supplies to consumers.

Italian energy group ENI said that Russian gas deliveries had fallen short of ordered deliveries for a sixth day on Sunday.

Meanwhile an explosion on a Russian gas supply pipeline, attributed by officials to sabotage, cut supplies to Georgia and Armenia and looked likely to take several days to repair.

Last week Russia's own gas supplies were reduced by 10 percent.

Source: Agence France-Presse

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/More_Deaths_In_Eastern_Europes_Big_Freeze.html

Southern Oklahoma had baseball-sized hail and surrounding states saw heavy rain as the front moved east across the Mississippi River. Power failures and wind damage were reported in Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee.

A tornado struck eastern Arkansas, damaging several homes and businesses, the National Weather Service said.

Around Little Rock, high winds rolled over a mobile home and damaged about a dozen other homes, and trees and power lines were down around the state. Road signs were reported bent in Johnson County, in northwestern Arkansas. A 78-mph gust was reported in the northeastern part of the state.

About 7,600 homes and businesses lost electricity when power lines went out after being hit by trees or other power lines, and the wind kept workers from making immediate repairs.

"It's kind of like a yo-yo out there," Entergy Arkansas spokesman James Thompson said.

In Ashdown, Arkansas, an 83-year-old city councilman died after lightning struck his house and started a fire. His wife was injured but survived.

In Shelby County, Tennessee, a woman died when her vehicle struck a tractor-trailer during heavy rain, officials said.

A couple in Tilton, Arkansas, suffered cuts and bruises after they left their mobile home and took shelter in their vehicle. The storm blew out the vehicle's windows -- but the trailer was destroyed, said Gerald Britton, a deputy emergency coordinator in Cross County.

Other homes in the county were also damaged, Britton said.

Lost shingles and downed fences in Lonoke County may have been caused by a tornado, the weather service said. Another tornado may have touched down in Woodruff County, where trees and power lines were down at Morton, the National Weather Service said.

Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said he will declare five counties disaster areas, entitling them to state money for the cleanup.

In Mississippi, students at Lockard Elementary School in Indianola were ordered into hallways just before a tornado struck, assistant principal Valerie Simpson said. No one was hurt, but the storm caused roof damage to three buildings and blew out windows.

Winds as high as 80 mph took off roofs and otherwise damaged homes in Bolivar and Panola counties, said Lea Stokes, spokeswoman for the state emergency agency. Three people were injured in Lowndes County, where several homes were damaged or destroyed.

Students in several counties were sent home.

"Some of the trees that made it through Katrina might not make it through this," said Ceroy Jefferson, assistant superintendent for Jefferson Davis County Schools. "We just want children to be safe at home."

The storm damaged homes and businesses, toppled trees and caused power failures in parts of Tennessee, where gusts up to 70 mph were reported near Nashville.

The rough weather was caused by a storm system moving from the northwest ahead of a cold front. The main storm system was moving into the rest of the South, and other thunderstorms were possible from another system expected to be centered in Missouri.

Storms were expected through Monday.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WEATHER/03/09/storms.ap/index.html

Phoenix knows all about dry weather. It is a place where children are drilled throughout elementary school to conserve water, where hotels boast of covered parking areas not to protect from rain, but to offer a bit of shade. Grown men spread lotion all over their bodies every morning. Noses bleed. Newcomers watch in horror as their hands seem to age right in front of them.

But even the desert suffers droughts, and this winter has brought a strong one, the fickle air currents pushing approaching storm clouds to the east.

Until this year, the record for days without recorded rainfall was set in 2000, a measly 101 days. The recording instrument for rainfall is at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, referred to as "the bucket" by meteorologists, and drier than a Sunday morning during Prohibition.

"People are sort of losing their grip," said Gary Woodard, who, as associate director of the University of Arizona Center for Sustainability of Semi-Arid Hydrology and Riparian Areas, is an expert on the region's water. " 'Did you hear it's going to rain tomorrow?' Well, actually, there's an 80 percent chance it's not going to rain. People are getting very excited about very slim chances of rain."

The drought has wreaked havoc on wildlife, which depend on the scant seven inches of rain that Phoenix gets in an average year, most of it in the three or four winter months.

"We have cactus dying from lack of water," Mr. Woodard said. "We have well-established mesquite trees that are in a lot of trouble."

Small animals are too dried out to do what comes naturally.

"None of the animals, none of the birds are having offspring this spring. No baby quail, no baby bunnies," Mr. Woodard said.

An alarming result of the drought is the condition of the air. On Thursday, Arizona's Department of Environmental Quality posted its 25th pollution advisory of the winter, a remarkable number. Last winter - the opposite of this one, with abundant rainfall - there were no such days. There is no rain to knock the dust and particles out of the air and wash them away.

"We've just had this large, dry, stagnant air mass hanging over the area since November," said Steve Owens, director of the environmental agency. "It used to be, you'd come to Arizona if you had breathing problems because of the air quality. Now, I think you'd have physicians who would say, 'Don't come to Arizona.' "

The drought seems to promise a harsh fire season. Last year, relatively heavy rains fell all winter, prompting fast growth in trees and shrubs that now sit dry and cracked. "I don't think I could have planned a better fire season," said Tom Pagano, a forecaster with the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service. "A lot of people in that business are quite worried."

The drought has not hurt the skin-care industry.

"You have to use lotion right when you're out of the shower, when your skin is still moist," said Mary Low, services manager at Arizona Biltmore Resort and Spa. "People wear sandals, so the skin on the heels of your feet get exposed to the dry air. The skin on the feet gets dry and cracked. You have to use a pumice stone and put lotion on your feet."

Another high-end refuge, Spa du Soleil in suburban Scottsdale, uses "medical grade oxygen" to infuse 87 vitamins straight into a customer's face, said the spa's director, Irene Kelly. "It really does keep your skin nice and smooth and plump and supple and hydrated," Ms. Kelly said.

Tourists love the sunshine and high temperatures in the 60's and 70's. Local residents shrug, and click on the humidifier at night.

"You get used to it, and pray every day that it rains," said Justin Hoiby, 27, an event planner overseeing a Western-themed company picnic - Pennsylvania executives racing in little covered wagons - in Scottsdale. It was Wednesday, and to the north, a huge, fat, gray-black rain cloud hung over the mountains, like a blimp over a sold-out stadium.

"I think it's going to stay to the north," Mr. Hoiby said, as the executives competed in a Wild West Olympics. "I've been watching it."

And yet, closer it came, the cloud blocking the sun and kicking up a little dust, irritating some tourists like Mary Green, 67, visiting from Chicago. "Nice for them," she said, looking over her shoulder at the grayness. "Not nice for a visitor who wants sunshine. It's not going to last, that's the nice thing."

But did it ever arrive? A few raindrops hit a forehead and a windshield. A nearby gas station attendant, Robert Roe, saw it: "It came down pretty good for about two seconds."

Jeff Grenfell, 41, a sommelier and chef, was hiking at the time. "I got a few drops," he said later.

Rain!

Not quite. None hit the bucket at the airport, according to the National Weather Service. The dry streak did not end, and a record-setting 142nd day continued, with no precipitation in the 24-hour forecast.

The record number of days in Phoenix with nothing more than trace amounts of rain (defined as less than 1/100th of an inch, but more than a drop on the forehead) is 160.

Whether that record will be broken in 19 days is unclear. Forecasters are calling for a relatively high chance - 50 percent - of rain this weekend.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/10/national/10phoenix.html?ex=1142571600&en=f729cde377bb212e&ei=5065&partner=MYWAY

Four back-to-back storms over the last three weeks have dumped more rain on parts of the islands than they normally would have seen in months, and drenched Kauai with up to six times more rain than normal for all of March, the National Weather Service said yesterday.

The news comes as forecasters are expecting heavy rains to stick around through the weekend. The weather service also says the possibility of heavy showers will remain in the forecast for all islands for at least 10 more days.

The series of storms to hit the state has caused widespread flooding, rockfalls, sewage spills and road closures from Kauai to the Big Island.

On Tuesday night, a landslide at the Wilson Tunnel on Likelike Highway caused some rocks and mud to fall on the road. Crews will close the town-bound lanes of the tunnel today and tomorrow to prevent further rockfalls.

Homes on the Windward Coast of Oahu sustained as much as $5 million in damage after flash flooding late last month and in early March. Damage totals for other affected areas have not yet been calculated.

A flash-flood watch is in effect for the state through Friday, but could be extended, said Andy Nash, director of operations for the weather service office in Honolulu.

Heavy rains settled over parts of Oahu, Kauai and the Big Island yesterday. Lihue got more than 4.8 inches in the 24-hour period ending at 5:45 p.m. yesterday, while Wailua saw 4.6 inches.

The fourth storm in the series started Monday, forecasters said. Other storms hit from Feb. 19 to 24, March 1 to 3 and March 8 to 10.

For Hanalei, the last three weeks has been the wettest on record since 1907 -- two years after meteorologists starting recording rainfall totals for the town, Nash said.

Lihue received 25 inches over the three-week period, compared with just an inch last year. It's the wettest February and March for Lihue since 1950.

"We've just had round after round after round of heavy rain," Nash said. "For Kauai, it's certainly up there in the record books."

The record-high totals on Kauai come on the heels of an unusually dry 2005 for the island. In December, Mount Waialeale got just 1.67 inches of rain, while Lihue Airport saw just .08 inches -- both record lows.

Over the last three weeks, Mount Waialeale has seen more than 106 inches, and Lihue Airport has gotten 28.9 inches.

"Kauai has taken the brunt of the most widespread, excessive rainfall," the weather service said. "Even the normally drier leeward sides have been much wetter than normal."

On Oahu, Poamoho saw the biggest rainfall total over the three-week period, with 63 inches. Wilson Tunnel got 39.1 inches -- a far second, but a more than six-fold increase from 2005. Punaluu, Luluku and the Waihee Pump rounded out the top five rainfall totals for Oahu.

Waiakea Uka and Glenwood topped the totals for the Big Island, getting 43.6 inches and 42.9 inches, respectively -- up to four times higher than normal. Mountain View saw 37.8 inches, compared with 4 inches last year.

All the storms were created by low pressure systems northwest of the islands, which produce unstable air and tap into tropical moisture, Nash said. A high pressure system to the east of the state has blocked the storms, stopping them from moving quickly across land.

"Storm after storm seems to follow this path," Nash said, adding that there has been little break between the heavy systems -- keeping the ground saturated and prone to flooding.

http://starbulletin.com/2006/03/16/news/story06.html

Nearly 92 inches - or about 7 1/2 feet - of rain were recorded during March at Mount Waialeale, considered the rainiest spot on the planet. The previous record was about 90 inches in April 1971, according to the National Weather Service.

Even the normally dry Honolulu Airport received more rain in the first three months of 2006 than in all of 2005.

The near biblical downfall left the islands disheveled with debris, flooded homes, and led to a sewage spill in the water off Waikiki.

The largest toll was taken on Kauai, where seven died when a century-old earthen dam strained by the heavy rains burst March 14 sending a wall of water crashing through homes to the sea.

Last week, a sewer line broke when it was overwhelmed by heavy rain and sent some 48 million gallons of raw sewage into the ocean.

But the beaches of Waikiki were open again Saturday, with only a hint of suntan lotion lingering in the air and crowds back on the sand - though fewer than usual in the water.

Sitting on towels with three friends at Waikiki, Susan Orr, of Colby, Kan., said she came to Hawaii in honor of her 50th birthday. It was the last day of their vacation, and the first decent day of sun.

"Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose," she said.

Honolulu was still cleaning up after a massive downpour Friday that sent mud sliding down hills and turned streets into gushing rapids of brown churning water.

Along with flooding homes, the rain sent merchandise floating at Kahala Mall, where waters rushed into a movie theater and inundated 90 shops with more than a foot of water.

Larry Leopardi, division chief of road maintenance for Honolulu, said the spate of rain that began on Feb. 19 has been like living in a hurricane.

"It's one of those storms that keeps giving," said Leopardi, whose crew have been working around the clock seven days a week.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060402/ap_on_re_us/rainy_hawaii_2

As temperatures climbed into the 30s (90f) for another day, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which runs the state's electricity grid, declared an emergency situation and ordered the blackouts because of the lack of electricity around Texas.

ERCOT said it declared the emergency after concluding there was insufficient generating capacity in the region to reliably serve the public's electricity demand.

As much as 15 per cent of the state's power supply goes offline each spring so plants can perform seasonal maintenance before energy usage peaks in the summer, said Public Utility Commission spokesman Terry Hadley. He said maintenance is typically finished by mid-May.

But unusually high temperatures this spring have pushed demand for electricity, creating a shortage, he said.

The rollouts were limited to the ERCOT grid, which provides electricity to about 80 per cent of Texas.

Traffic backed up at intersections in Grand Prairie, just west of Dallas, during the afternoon rush hour.

CenterPoint Energy spokeswoman Emily Thompson said rolling blackouts every 15 minutes for the Houston area were ordered just after 4 p.m. Monday.

"We're hoping this will be taken care of very shortly," she said.

Austin Energy said it began its rotating blackouts about 4:20 p.m. to comply with its share of the load shedding requirement.

http://www.cbc.ca/cp/world/060417/w041760.html

Swollen by heavy rain and spring melting of snow, the Danube, the second-longest river in Europe, hit its highest point for 111 years over the weekend in Romania and Bulgaria and reached record levels in Serbia.

Around 3,000 residents of the village of Rast in Romania were evacuated on Monday before the surging river entirely submerged their homes. Some 115 houses were destroyed and another 600 damaged.

The district chief, Nicolae Giugea, said 10,000 residents of four villages in the area were on standby for evacuation if the water continued to rise.

According to the Romanian environment and water management ministry, the Danube was flowing at double the average speed for this time of year - a record 15,800 cubic metres per second.

Controlled flooding

In the southern Romanian port of Calarasi on Monday, a recently opened riverside hotel was flooded causing major damage to the building. Dozens of tourists and personnel were evacuated.

Romanian authorities were using controlled flooding of agricultural land to reduce the pressure of the swollen river on dykes built to protect populated areas.

Several border crossings over the river separating Romania and Bulgaria were closed temporarily.

Authorities restricted traffic at the Giurgiu border crossing, with hundreds of cars waiting on the Romanian side of the border.

In Bulgaria, a state of emergency was being maintained along the Danube, with the government warning the water levels were expected to reach a peak of up to 990cm in the northwestern town of Vidin on Wednesday.

The situation was made worse in Serbia by the high level of water in swollen smaller rivers that join the Danube. These include the Tisa and Begej, which meet at the town of Titel, north of Belgrade.

Over the weekend, the river reached an all-time high of 9.41m near Veliko Gradiste, 100km east of Belgrade.

In the agriculture-rich northern province of Vojvodina, the flooding and heavy rains submerged some 10,000 hectares of farmland and turned another 200,000 into mud and slush.

In the eastern Serbian town of Smederevo, authorities dispatched all city workers to fight flooding as the waters submerged parts of the town's train station, bringing rail traffic to a halt.

Dyke defence

In Belgrade, where the Danube meets the Sava, the situation was under control on Monday morning, although authorities there said they were working to maintain 250km of dykes.

"Our principal concern is the survival of the dykes," Nikola Marjanovic, of Serbia's water authority, told B92 radio.

Goran Kamcev, head of the Serbia flood prevention task force, told Reuters: "The situation is under control along the whole flow of the Danube through Serbia."

"We now have to watch out for the longstanding pressure on the barriers, with water expected to stay high for some 10 to 15 days. It could cause the dykes to leak or even break and our teams on the ground have to stay vigilant."

Much of the Balkans were hit by floods last year that drowned scores of people and caused damage to houses, farmland and infrastructure running into hundreds of millions of dollars.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/57DD64FE-2718-48FB-9B3C-4850312706D9.htm

Weather forecasters say the cyclone is heading towards Lockhart River and will probably gain strength and cross there sometime on Wednesday morning.

Chief executive officer of the Lockhart River Aboriginal Shire Council, Peter Buckland, says this time last year cyclone Ingrid, a category 4 cyclone, hit the community.

He says they will be drawing on that experience.

"With our run-in with cyclone Ingrid last year, this year we had three clean-ups, so we were well-prepared this year,'' he said.

"The counter disaster group has already met today.

"We've put in train all the necessary actions that we can do and know it's a waiting game."

He says some residents will probably choose to shelter in the community's lock-up tonight.

State Emergency Service crews from Brisbane are due to arrive in Cairns tonight.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200604/s1618548.htm

No serious injuries were reported, but two horses were killed when what appeared to be a tornado swept through a Waco ranch and flattened some barns and a two-story home. At least six other horses - all belonging to Baylor University's equestrian program - were injured, the school said.

"When you have winds from 80 to 100 mph it can do damage similar to that of a tornado," said Jesse Moore, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. "That can do some very, very big damage."

Just south of the Oklahoma border in Gainesville, wind and hail broke windows and ripped roofs on houses, said city spokeswoman Kay Lunnon. Some areas were still without power late Saturday.

Forecasters said the city has more than 3 inches of rain.

At the Gainesville Municipal Airport, hangars were damaged and private planes that were outside were pushed into each other by the high winds, said airport director Matt Quick. About 15 planes were damaged, he said.

In Waco, Baylor University freshman Shelby White was about to go to bed when the wind began pounding her family's house.

"I dove in the back corner of my room and all the walls collapsed," White said. "When the window shattered, I thought we had a really strong wind. But when the wall started collapsing, I didn't know what to think."

The National Weather Service said that while a tornado was briefly spotted around Waco, straight-line winds of at least 70 mph likely did most of the damage.

Officials also reported wind-damaged homes and felled trees in San Jacinto and Liberty Counties, around Houston. About 4,000 customers in the Houston area lost power during the storm, CenterPoint Energy officials said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060430/ap_on_re_us/texas_storms_7

At least 200 houses and five factories were also damaged as strong winds and heavy rain from Cyclone Mala hit Yangon and surrounding industrial areas late Friday, the New Light of Myanmar newspaper said Sunday.

"Sudden strong winds along with heavy rainfall destroyed roofs on five factories and more than 200 houses in Hlainethaya township," it said.

The injured had been sent to two hospitals and Yangon's military commander had set up relief camps for families whose houses were heavily damaged, it said. It was unclear how the woman died.

Witnesses, however, said the damage was more widespread with about 28 factories destroyed.

Military and police were blocking roads to the affected areas and had started cleaning up, the witnesses said.

Cyclone Mala has been moving up the coast of western Myanmar bringing strong winds and causing some flash floods and power blackouts.

Several buildings in the coastal resort town of Gwa, northwest of Yangon, were destroyed on Saturday but there were no immediate reports of casualties, the Red Cross said.

Mala was downgraded from a category four storm after losing intensity as it made landfall and moved inland through western Rakhine state, a weather official said.

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/060430/1/40gjy.html

The wild weather battered the Shandong cities of Heze, Linyi, Zaozhuang, Jining and Liaocheng from Wednesday to Friday last week, Xinhua reported. The news agency cited Shandong's civil affairs department as saying that 2.18 million people were affected by the storms, without elaborating. Twelve people died and 58 others were seriously injured.

The hail and rainstorms destroyed 3,243 houses and damaged 155,000 hectares of farmland, resulting in an economic loss of 2.2 billion Chinese yuan ($305 Cdn), according to Xinhua.

The provincial government has sent teams to the disaster areas to organize relief efforts, Xinhua said.

http://www.cbc.ca/cp/world/060501/w050118.html

Hurricanes, tornadoes, severe thunderstorms, blizzards, floods and droughts, the U.S. has them all -- in more manifestations and more abundance than anywhere else on Earth.

Rambunctious weather comes from mixing together hot and cold air, moisture and terrain in the right combinations, and the United States regularly provides them. In a typical year, the U.S. is battered by direct hits from about two hurricanes (and a major hurricane every other year; 1,000 tornadoes; 5,000 floods; 10,000 violent thunder storms; and drought somewhere.

"This one of the very few land areas on Earth where the only thing that separates tropical moisture from polar cold is a barbed-wire fence," said Virginia's state climatologist, Patrick J. Michaels. "Most other places on Earth have a transverse mountain range that separates these two wildly energetic air masses."

The reason the U.S. is the target for so much weather mayhem is that, "We bring together the environmental conditions that will produce severe weather more often than any other place on the planet," said Harold Brooks, a research meteorologist with NOAA's National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Okla.

The U.S. is big -- the world's third-largest country by area after Russia and Canada -- making it a target for weather systems.

The U.S. also lies in the Northern Hemisphere's middle latitudes, where the upper atmosphere's jet stream helps whip up storms and steer them from west to east across the country.

Meanwhile, in contrast to most of the rest of the world, mountain ranges in the U.S. run more or less north-south, not east-west like the chains of mountains girdling Europe and Asia.

The clash of warm, damp air with cold, dry air is the basic recipe for what are called extratropical cyclones, the systems that produce the U.S.'s winter snow and ice storms, and thunderstorms and tornadoes in spring and fall.

And the Rockies and the Appalachians, by spinning the air flowing over those mountains, create spawning grounds for high-impact storms on their eastern sides, said James Hoke, director of NOAA's Hydrometeorological Prediction Center in Camp Springs, Md.

Then there are hurricanes.

"We have an open door through the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean to tropics, so that the United States is typically impacted at least once in a hurricane season by a tropical storm or hurricane," said warning coordination meteorologist Bill Sammler at the Wakefield Weather Forecast Office.

Living cheek-by-jowl with the steamy tropics -- and the Gulf Stream along the Atlantic coast also provides moisture for extratropical storms to put to work in heavy snows, flooding rains, explosive thunderstorms and raging tornadoes, Sammler said.

But Hoke said, "we have some of the best weather in the world, almost for the same reasons."

http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD/MGArticle/RTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149188652144

Witnesses reported seeing a flash of light shortly before the motorcyclist struck the center divider on U.S. 36 Wednesday, police spokesman Tim Read said.

Gary Missi, 46, of Longmont was pronounced dead at the scene.

A coroner's investigation was under way to determine whether the lightning bolt, the collision or something else caused his death, Read said.

The lightning blasted a 4-inch-deep hole in the highway and sent chunks of asphalt hurtling across the highway.

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Twenty-seven wrecks occurred in an 11-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 62/82 shortly after 5 p.m., said John Gonzalez, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety.

"We had a domino effect," Gonzalez told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal in Friday editions. "We had crashes from the Hockley County line to five miles north of Brownfield."

James Brown, 71, of Lubbock, was killed when his car crashed into a tow truck that had stopped to assist with an accident, authorities said.

Twelve people involved in other wrecks were taken to area hospitals, but the extent of their injuries was unknown.

The National Weather Service reported wind gusts at 60 mph in Lubbock and 70 mph in other areas of the South Plains.

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Five inches of rain fell in a five-hour span in the Toledo area Wednesday night, while tornadoes were reported in Michigan, and 56 mph wind gusts and golf ball-size hail pelted northern Ohio, the National Weather Service said.

The city of Norwalk, 60 miles southeast of Toledo, was split in two by the flooding. Twenty homes were evacuated and emergency crews were working around the clock to rescue stranded people, Mayor Sue Lesch said.

In Toledo, firefighters resorted to rubber boats to rescue motorists from flooded underpasses, said Lucas County EMA Director William Halsey.

Emergency officials who took damage calls in Ohio said no injuries had been reported, but flood warnings were extended into Thursday there and in southwest Pennsylvania as the rain moved eastward. Water more than a foot deep kept several major roads closed in the Toledo area.

"It hasn't stopped," Ottawa County sheriff's Deputy Jennifer Mansor said Thursday morning. The Ohio Department of Transportation was closing some state routes in the county because of the storm and rising water, she said.

In western Pennsylvania, about 2,000 people were without power early Thursday, and a lightning strike was blamed for a Pittsburgh apartment fire. No one was injured in the blaze.

The storm spawned at least two tornadoes in Michigan, one near Manitou Beach and another near Lambertville, just north of the Ohio line. No injuries or major damage were reported, officials said, but about 40,000 people lost power.

At Magruder Hospital in Port Clinton, between Toledo and Norwalk, the staff had to use generators for a short time after the power went out, and pumps were brought in to remove several inches of water from the front entrance and lobby, supervisor Nancy Merk said.

Lightning danced around Jacobs Field in Cleveland and thunder shook the ballpark as a storm rolled in off Lake Erie, halting the Indians' game against the Chicago Cubs after seven innings Wednesday. Fans retreated underneath overhangs to stay dry during the rain delay and listened to the Doors' "Riders On The Storm" over the loudspeakers.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060622/ap_on_re_us/severe_weather_3

At least two roads were blocked by landslides, and water and mud reached almost 7 feet high in Sinjai, the hardest hit district of southern Sulawesi province, where rescuers scrambled to evacuate survivors.

The number of dead climbed to 201 and hopes of finding the scores of people still missing were quickly fading, said Dadang, an official at the island's disaster relief coordination office who goes by one name.

"Rescuers say most of the missing people are likely to have been swept out to sea," said Ode Parmodes, also of the relief office.

The flash floods and landslides were triggered by incessant rains since Monday, and the government has promised an investigation into claims that illegal logging may have been a contributory factor.

"What has happened in Sinjai should become a lesson to all of Indonesia: people must be alert if torrential rains pour over areas where forests have been depleted," said Forestry Minister Malam Kaban.

Hundreds of people flocked to hospitals to look for missing relatives, witnesses said.

One man, Rohim, said a flood tore through his house early Tuesday, sweeping him out to sea. He said he survived for nine hours by hanging onto a piece of drift wood, but his wife and two sons had vanished.

"I pray for them, and hope rescuers can find them," he said at Sinjai hospital, where he had been looking for their bodies in the morgue. "I will stay here until I can find them: dead or alive."

Sulawesi is about 1,000 miles northeast of Indonesia's capital, Jakarta.

Seasonal downpours cause dozens of landslides and flash floods each year in Indonesia, where millions of people live in mountainous regions and near fertile flood plains close to rivers. Some environmentalists and government officials blame rampant deforestation, which they contend loosens soils on mountainsides.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060622/ap_on_re_as/indonesia_flooding_6

RIEGELWOOD, N.C. - A tornado ripped apart a mobile home park early Thursday, killing at least seven people in this tiny riverside community and raising the death toll from the thunderstorms across the South to 10.

Officials searching for victims cautioned the death toll could rise.

Car crashes in the heavy rain early Thursday killed two people in North Carolina, and another person died Wednesday when a tornado struck a home in Louisiana.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15747102/?GT1=8717

Butterflies have been seen in Denmark, some Nordic golf courses -- usually frozen for the winter -- have reopened and many farmers worry that crops are sprouting far too early and could be killed by frost.

One historian says that Europe has just had its warmest autumn in 500 years. Experts say the mildness might be just a natural freak but many suspect it may be linked to greenhouse gases caused by human burning of fossil fuels.

Whatever the reasons, a recent dusting of snow has been welcome at Alpine resorts, now gradually opening after long delays.

"Everybody is happy that it has snowed. The whole atmosphere is more relaxed, it feels less stressed although the conditions are not totally perfect yet," said Joerg Romang, head of communications for the Swiss resort of Crans-Montana.

"A lot of fake snow is being produced right now," said a spokeswoman for Austria's cable car association. Temperatures may rise again but the snow is easing fears that Christmas skiers may have to spend a snowless holiday hiking or at a spa.

In Russia, record December temperatures have kept bears from hibernating and flowers such as daisies and purple violets have been seen in and around the capital. Usually gripped by ice, Moscow basked at a record 7.7 Celsius (45.86F) on December 7.

"Muscovites are smiling: they don't have to wear hats and the grass is green," wrote popular daily Moskovsky Komsomolets, adding that Siberia would become the world's granary if temperatures stayed warm.

WHITE CHRISTMAS

Retailers worry that shoppers are not cold enough even to start dreaming of a white Christmas.

"Christmas business lacks impetus as there is no Christmas spirit in warmer weather," said Hubertus Pellengahr, a spokesman for the German retail trade association HDE. "Retail sales are far more weather related than one might assume."

But Berlin's construction industry is keeping going at a time of year when a winter chill usually forces a slowdown.

"The order books are full and thanks to the good weather the contracts can be fulfilled," said Lutz Uecker, chief economist of the German building industry federation ZDB.

In the Netherlands, the Dutch meteorological institute KNMI said 2006 was likely to be the warmest year in three centuries, and linked the record with global warming that many scientists fear will bring more floods, droughts and higher seas.

"If you look at trends, then you can say that this (the 2006 record) is a signal of global warming," said Rob van Dorland of the KNMI atmospheric research department.

Farmers are worried that plants, confused by the spring-like temperatures, could suffer if harsh frost strikes. German asthma sufferers are complaining of pollen and Sweden has suffered rare December floods.

If crops such as rapeseed and autumn grains grow too much in the warmth "that could mean problems in snowless dry frost beyond minus 10 centigrade," said Andras Uhercsak, head advisor at the Hungarian farmers' group MOSZ.

In Finland, the Hartola golf club closed as usual because of snow at the start of November but reopened after a rare thaw.

A report in science journal Nature this month said 2006 had the warmest autumn since around the time Columbus sailed the Atlantic, about 2C (3.6F) warmer than the long-term average.

The autumn beat the record-warm autumns of 1772, 1938 and 2000, according to Elena Xoplaki of the University of Berne.

(Additional reporting by Olesya Dmitracova in Moscow, Rene Wagner and Ulf Laessing in Berlin, Anna Mudeva in Amsterdam, Sakari Suoninen in Helsinki, Andras in Budapest, Karin Strohecker in Vienna, Niklas Pollard in Stockholm, Gelu Suluguic in Copenhagen)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061212/sc_nm/climate_warmth_dc_1