DUBAI (AFP) - Snow has fallen over the United Arab Emirates for the first time ever, leaving a white blanket over the mountains of Ras al-Khaimah as the desert country experienced a cold spell and above-average rainfall.

Dubai airport's meteorology department told AFP that snow fell over the Al-Jees mountain range in Ras al-Khaimah, which is the most northerly member of the UAE federation.

The English-language Gulf News reported that the mountain cluster, 5,700 feet (1,737 metres) above sea level, "had heavy night-time snowfall for the past two days as a result of temperatures dropping to as low as minus five Celsius (23 Fahrenheit)" and stunning the emirate's residents.

On Monday, 12.6 millimetres (half an inch) of rain fell on the desert emirate of Dubai, where it hardly ever rains, as police reported 500 accidents on its roads in 24 hours, including one fatality, as a result of a three-day downpour.

A cold spell has hit the country this week, with the mercury plunging to 12 degrees Celsius (53.6 Fahrenheit) in Dubai on Wednesday night.

The meteorology department, however, said the chilly weather in Dubai, where summer temperatures reach 50 Celcius (122 Fahrenheit), will probably end by next week.

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA - Environmental officials say an oil spill in an Alaskan wildlife sanctuary that followed a shipwreck three weeks ago is far worse than originally feared.

Up to 1.28 million litres of thick fuel oil ñ more than eight times the original estimate ñ are believed to have leaked into the Bering Sea after a Malaysian-flagged freighter ran aground off the Aleutian islands on Dec. 8.

A spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, Lynda Giguere, said Thursday that more than 600 birds have been coated with oil while 109 others have died since the spill was first reported.

Beaches in the area are coated by a thick layer of oil and tar balls have been seen floating in the region's waters, she said.

The Wildlife Refuge is the nesting haven for 40 million seabirds and numerous marine mammals, including the endangered Steller sea lion and western Alaska sea otter.

The Singaporean-owned freighter, Selendang Ayu, was carrying soy beans from the United States to China when it ran aground off Unalaska Island on Dec. 8 after losing power to its engines.

Six crew members died while an American Coast Guard helicopter was trying to airlift them to safety.

There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production– with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas – parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia – where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.

The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree – a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars' worth of damage in 13 U.S. states.

To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world's weather. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. “A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,” warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, “because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century.”

A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972.

To the layman, the relatively small changes in temperature and sunshine can be highly misleading. Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin points out that the Earth’s average temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about seven degrees lower than during its warmest eras – and that the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average. Others regard the cooling as a reversion to the “little ice age” conditions that brought bitter winters to much of Europe and northern America between 1600 and 1900 – years when the Thames used to freeze so solidly that Londoners roasted oxen on the ice and when iceboats sailed the Hudson River almost as far south as New York City.

Just what causes the onset of major and minor ice ages remains a mystery. “Our knowledge of the mechanisms of climatic change is at least as fragmentary as our data,” concedes the National Academy of Sciences report. “Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions.” [...]

Ironically, several of the countries hit by the waves had escaped the more extreme natural phenomena that pummeled their neighbours earlier in the year.

Incessant monsoon rains, the heaviest in years, had lashed Bangladesh, northeast India and parts of Nepal in July and August, killing at least 1,240 people.

Large swathes of Bangladesh, one of the world's poorest and most densely populated nations, were submerged for weeks. At least 700 people died and many were left homeless.

Powerful storms in the Philippines in early December spawned flash floods and landslides that swept away whole villages, leaving 1,600 dead or missing.

In both cases human activity -- building development in Bangladesh and illegal logging in the Phipippines -- were blamed for worsening the effects of the downpours.

The World Bank estimated the cost to Bangladesh at 2.2 billion dollars this year.

"Farmers have had huge losses and siltation of much land means that many areas will be barren for around 10 years," said Dilruba Haider, assistant representative at the United Nations Development Fund.

Months after the floodwater subsided, aid agencies have described the increased hardship endured by millions already living on less than a dollar a day as a "quiet disaster".

An unusual high pressure system in the Pacific was the main reason for a record 10 typhoons that hit Japan and the heaviest rain in 29 years, the country's Meteorological Agency said.

About 216 people died and damage reached one trillion yen (9.7 billion dollars), government agencies said.

Tokyo is now racing to develop new measures to better warn senior citizens, who accounted for most of the victims, and to improve evacuation orders.

Many elderly were swept away in floods or buried alive in landslides. Of the 93 killed by Typhoon Tokage, the deadliest in 25 years, which struck in October, two-thirds were aged over 60.

Also in October Japan suffered its worst earthquake in a decade, measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale, which killed 40 people.

China suffered too, from floods, typhoons, and the worst drought in more than 50 years which still gripped large parts of the south and east at the end of the year.

More than 1,000 people died in weather-related incidents but the toll was lower than the previous year's figure of 1,900 because of better emergency planning, officials said.

Total economic losses for the year were put at 10 billion dollars.

In Taiwan, massive floods brought by storm Mindulle killed 29 and caused 4.07 billion Taiwan dollars (126 million US) in losses to agriculture and fisheries.

Mudslides triggered by Typhoon Aere in August claimed 15 lives and 767 million dollars in losses, prompting government officals and experts to restrict farming and land use in some conservation and landslide prone areas.

Dozens of families were clearing up storm debris tonight after a “mini-tornado” damaged around 100 houses in the Irish Republic.
The sudden squall ripped slates from roofs, smashed windows and overturned sheds and cars at around 1pm.

The worst affected area covered three housing estates in Clonee in Co Meath on the Dublin border.

Gardai and fire officers said it was amazing nobody was injured.
A main road between the Hansfield, Castaheaney and Hunters Run estates was closed off and residents were urged to stay indoors.

“There is still a danger of falling branches and slates,” said one fire officer.

Earlier, residents fled into their homes as the freak storm swept through their estates.

One resident said: “It got very dark and blustery. I saw a flash of lightning and then the house started to shake. It was the most frightening thing I have ever gone through.

“It felt like an earthquake or a mini tornado.”

AKKARAIPATTU—Flying emergency aid 14,000 kilometres from Canada to Colombo's international airport is the easy part. Hauling it the next 200 kilometres overland into the hands of desperate refugees from Sri Lanka's battered eastern coastal communities is proving far more difficult — and dangerous.

Foreign aid workers struggled with a day-long torrential downpour yesterday that paralyzed relief efforts across Sri Lanka's isolated northeast, just days after tsunami waves wiped out entire coastal settlements.

The relentless monsoon rains washed away roads and flooded highways, forcing hundreds of relief trucks and other supply vehicles to turn back to the capital and preventing aid flights from landing.

Refugees waiting for help here in the Ampara district — the worst-affected areas that account for roughly half of Sri Lanka's nearly 30,000 dead — were forced to huddle on the floors of crowded schools and temples braced for possible flooding and leaks.

Aid workers had to set aside some of their most urgent efforts to burn bodies and chlorinate drinking water wells that were contaminated by salt water when the tidal waves engulfed local fishing villages.

"The water level is rising because of the flooding, but also because the drainage system has now completely collapsed," said Canadian aid worker Raga Alphonsus, who arrived here this week to help ZOA, a Dutch aid agency for displaced people.

He predicted major difficulties after the first wave of food distributions has been completed, because water and sanitation problems will become more pressing with the swelling tide of refugees.

"If it's not solved we're heading to a different type of calamity," Alphonsus warned, adding, "The real issue now is co-ordination of aid."

Relief groups said the continuing rains have not only slowed aid shipments, but seriously hampered the recovery of bodies in the Ampara and Batticaloa districts that bore the brunt of the tsunami. [...]

Hong Kong - Hong Kong on Saturday had its coldest New Year's Day for more than 40 years as temperatures in the normally balmy territory plunged to as low as three degrees Celsius.

Urban temperatures fell to 6.4 degrees Celsius while in the rural New Territories, temperatures of three degrees Celsius - the lowest on record for this time of year - were recorded on Saturday morning.

Cold shelters have opened across the territory of 6.8 million people, which is ill-equipped to deal with low temperatures, and welfare workers were distributing blankets to elderly people.

The cold snap is being caused by a winter monsoon that has been blown down from northern China, where seasonal temperatures usually plunge below zero at the end of December and beginning of January.

The coldest temperature recorded in Hong Kong on a New Year's Day before this year was six degrees Celsius in 1988. Overall, meteorologists said it is the coldest New Year's Day for more than 40 years.

LOS ANGELES - Heavy snow shut down a major highway north of Los Angeles on Monday and slowed post-holiday travel in the Sierra Nevada as California faced a second week of stormy weather.

Pounding rain flooded roads and dumped snow on Southern California mountains, turning the morning commute into a white-knuckle obstacle course.

Deep snow in the Tejon Pass north of Los Angeles shut down Interstate 5, the state's main north-south highway, and the California Highway Patrol said it was expected to stay closed at the pass all day.

At lower elevations in the Los Angeles region, flooding closed the Long Beach Freeway at the Pacific Coast Highway.

In Northern California, people driving home from ski resorts in the Sierra Nevada faced long traffic delays and slippery roads, and winter storm and snow advisories were in effect for the region. Some ski resorts in the Lake Tahoe area reported as much as 9 feet of snow since late last week.

The National Weather Service said an additional foot of snow was possible in the northern Sierra. [...]

At least four people, including a seven-year-old girl, drowned when they were dragged out to sea off Victoria's south-west coast.

A seven-year-old boy was still missing last night, while three children were in hospital, one in a critical condition.

The group of seven or eight, including three adults - all believed to be related - had been swimming earlier at Stingray Bay, about a kilometre from Warrnambool's main beach, Lady Bay.

They were believed to have been walking between two islands at low tide when conditions changed and they were swept out to sea at 3.20pm.

Victoria Police and Southern Peninsula Rescue Service helicopters, surf lifesavers and State Emergency Service volunteers joined local fishermen to recover six of the group from the water, but three adults could not be resuscitated.

Four children were rushed to Warrnambool Base Hospital, where one later died.

Justin Houlihan, a member of Warrnambool Surf Life Saving Club, said Stingray Bay was perilous because of swirling currents that changed conditions rapidly. [...]

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) - At least 35 people have been killed in a bout of severe winter weather that has brought flooding, mudslides and snow to parts of Pakistan, authorities said Sunday.

A woman and eight children drowned Saturday night in a rain-swollen river near Isakhel town about 200 kilometres southwest of the capital, Islamabad, said Rana Naseer Ahmed, the top government administrator in Mianwali, a vast district where Isakhel is located.

The 50-year-old woman and the children, ages four to 10, were in a tent pitched in a dried up part of riverbed that was flooded by rain, Ahmed said.

Rescuers have recovered the bodies. It was not clear whether they were from the same family, but Ahmed said they were members of a shepherding tribe.

Also on Saturday, a couple and their four children were killed when their home was struck by a mudslide triggered by heavy rain and snow in Abbottabad, a hill resort town about 70 kilometres northwest of Islamabad, said local police officer Azghar Khan.

Rain and heavy snow have been lashing Abbottabad and several other neighbouring mountainous areas in northern Pakistan.

In Quetta, capital of the southwestern Baluchistan province - which is in the grip of a cold wave and has received the heaviest snow in two decades - three people were killed in their homes by gas from leaking from heaters, said a Quetta police official, Salim Khan.

A day earlier, a woman and her three children died of asphyxiation in their home in Quetta, Khan said.

Rains and snow have hit been many parts of Baluchistan since Friday and about 13 people have been reported killed by cold and rain-related incidents in the province, said Farooq Jogezai, the province's top emergency relief official.

The casualties in Baluchistan include two women and a child who were killed Friday when the thatched roof of their mud home collapsed in Chaman town near the Afghan border, about 125 kilometres northwest of Quetta.

It is widely thought tsunamis are rare, many countries believe they are immune to them, and popular wisdom holds earthquakes responsible for the killer waves. None of these beliefs is entirely true.

A tsunami is a surge of water, or a series of surges generated by an impulsive, shock-displacement of ocean water that can occur anywhere.

Like earthquakes, volcanoes can cause these surges, and often do. One of the most destructive tsunamis in recent history occurred when the island volcano of Krakatoa erupted in 1883.

Submarine landslides, which can involve thousands of cubic kilometres of material, can also generate a tsunami.

Tsunamis can have their origins in space. Australian geographer Professor Ted Bryant points out that a meteorite striking the ocean can have a devastating effect. He maintains that on February 22, 1491, a meteorite strike caused tsunamis more than 130m high along the Australian coast.

Many countries believe they are immune from tsunamis but almost all coasts are at risk, says Bryant.

There was a tsunami in India in 1941. The 1755 Portuguese earthquake is reported to have caused a 15m tsunami that destroyed part of Lisbon and the nearby coasts of Spain and Morocco.

Tsunamis have been common around the Japanese islands for the past 200 years. Other large tsunamis occurred in Alaska in 1946, 1957, 1958 and 1964.

Bryant has found signs of tsunami waves more than 100m high on such unlikely places as coastal southeast Australia and the Scottish coastline north of Edinburgh.

Geographers Drs Roy Walters and James Goff have classified tsunamis by the distance from their source to the area of impact; that is, local and remote tsunami.

Locally generated tsunamis have short warning times - 15 to 30 minutes - while remote tsunamis have warning times ranging up to several hours.

The destructive potential of a tsunami is not simply a function of the size of the underwater disturbance, the so-called "source characteristic".

The gradient and shape of the seashore, coastal topography and shoreline configuration are, in many instances, as important as strength of the initial water displacement.

These "coastal response characteristics" and the source characteristics, determine the impact potential.

In 1958, a landslide into Lituya Bay, Alaska, created tsunami waves reportedly more than 400m high along a wilderness coastal area, stripping the forest to bare rock to an incredible height of more than 500m above sea level. Presumably this mammoth wave resulted from the distinct configuration of the coast, in particular the shoreline topography, which channelled the water along a narrow bay.

Some earthquakes generate tsunamis disproportionately large for the surface movement, or so called "surface wave", created.

For example, on September 1, 1992, an earthquake with the magnitude of 6.9 generated a tsunami with waves up to 15m high that struck 26 towns along 250km of Nicaragua's Pacific coast. The waves swept as far as 1km inland at one point. The tsunami left more than 110 people dead and 490 injured.

Experiences of highly destructive tsunamis in our general region are not as uncommon as many people might think.

According to physical geographers Dr Willem de Lange and Professor Terry Healy, of the University of Waikato, there have been 11 tsunamis in ocean waters next to the Auckland metropolitan region since 1840. Most are thought to have been less than 2m high.

However, 150 years is not a long time and more extreme events are likely to have happened in the past. Local sources (earthquakes and volcanic eruptions) are thought to produce the most damaging tsunamis, but none have occurred during recorded history.

The Auckland Regional Council believes there is about a 50 per cent chance that within the next 50 years Auckland will be hit by a tsunami originating from a large earthquake off the west coast of South America. Estimates are that wave heights of around 4m could occur in the outer Hauraki Gulf.

Major tsunamis occur in the Pacific Ocean region only about once a decade. The Moro Gulf, Philippines, tsunami in 1976 was followed by another highly destructive tsunami in New Guinea in July, 1998. An earthquake off northwest New Guinea has been blamed for this tsunami, which killed around 2000 people near Aitape.

But Bryant and others argue the 7.1 magnitude earthquake was too small to be responsible for the 15m wave that swept 500m inland at Aitape. They believe that a submarine landslide was the likely source.

The consequences of the Aitape event were, fortunately, quite localised. This is not always the case.

The earthquake that caused the catastrophic Boxing Day tsunamis was hardly felt in Indonesia, and not at all in Sri Lanka, yet the water displacement caused by the driving of the Indian plate beneath the Burma plate created waves that killed people on the east African coast almost 5000km away.

Following the great Chilean earthquake of 1960, tsunamis travelled almost 10,000km to Hawaii, where waves of more than 10m killed 60 people and destroyed many buildings along the coast of Hilo.

There is no doubt that tsunamis are an underrated hazard.

The biggest question in natural hazards research is not will events like these happen again, but when?

* Chris de Freitas is an associate professor in physical geography at the University of Auckland.

Fears more bushfires could be caused by lightning strikes across Western Australia have proved warranted. During storms on Sunday night, three blazes were sparked.

On Monday morning, WA's Department of Conservation and Land Management responded to two fires at the Lake Muir Nature Reserve east of Manjimup, and in Wattle forest block between Manjimup and Walpole.

Another blaze had also been detected in the Fitzgerald River National Park between Bremer Bay and Hopetoun.

The fire at Lake Muir was relatively inaccessible because of the nearby wetlands, and there were fears the blaze may expand to over 1000ha before it could be contained.

Meanwhile, a fire started by lightning in the Albany area last week continued to burn yesterday, with water bombing helicopters being used to damp down hotspots.

LOS ANGELES - Ice and snow kept California's heavily traveled main north-south highway closed for a second day Tuesday as residents awaited the next storm in the parade of wild weather that has hammered the state.

The storms that started just over a week ago have piled snow 9 feet deep on higher spots in the Sierra Nevada, soaked Los Angeles with record rainfall, caused mudslides and knocked out power to thousands of customers.

A 40-mile stretch of Interstate 5 remained shut Tuesday north of Los Angeles because as much as 2 feet of snow had fallen on top of a layer of ice at Tejon Pass, elevation about 4,200 feet, the California Highway Patrol said. The CHP closed the freeway early Monday and there was no immediate indication Tuesday when it might be reopened.

The closing idled hundreds of truckers and other travelers who didn't want to turn around to take a detour looping around the mountains and through the desert.

The storms were sparked by an extensive low pressure system that edged down from the Gulf of Alaska and remained parked off the Pacific Northwest coast. The latest front was expected to linger through Tuesday and another system was to move across the state later this week. [...]

Yes, it was a shocker.

Snow, frost, hail and a tornado marked the first month of summer, with the coldest temperatures recorded in December since 1945.

National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research figures for last month show it was the fifth coldest since records were established in 1853. The national average temperature was just 13.4C - 2.2C below normal and more like spring than summer.

The record-breaking low temperatures not only kept the summer clothes in the cupboard but slowed the growth and ripening of berries, stone fruit and crops.

Southerlies produced dramatic amounts of rain, with more than double normal rainfall in eastern regions from Hawkes Bay to Southland. Rainfall was also well above average in Auckland, Coromandel, Waikato, Ruapehu and Wanganui.

Despite that, less than three-quarters of average rainfall was recorded in sheltered parts of Fiordland and south Westland.

And if you thought there was a dire shortage of sun, there was.
Auckland recorded only 174 hours of sunshine - 83 per cent of the normal figure and the third lowest since records began in 1963. [...]

WICHITA, Kan. - The bad news: more tornadoes were reported in Kansas and the nation last year than at any time since records have been kept.

The good news: no one died in the Kansas tornadoes, and the national death toll was far below the annual average.

Kansas recorded 124 tornadoes last year, breaking the mark of 116 set in 1991. The state also set a record for most tornadoes in a single month: 66 in May.

There were 1,555 tornadoes recorded in the country through September, according to statistics compiled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla. Even without figures for the final three months, that breaks the record set in 1998 by more than 130.

The higher numbers do not necessarily mean more tornadoes are occurring than in the past. Better reporting systems contribute to the record, said Mike Smith, founder and chief executive of WeatherData, a private forecasting service based in Wichita. [...]

WASHINGTON - Moisture-laden storms from the north, west and south are likely to converge on much of America over the next several days in what could be a once-in-a-generation onslaught, meteorologists forecast Tuesday.

If the gloomy computer models at the U.S. Climate Prediction Center are right, we'll see this terrible trio:

- The "Pineapple Express," a series of warm wet storms heading east from Hawaii, drenching Southern California and the far Southwest, which already are beset with heavy rain and snow. It could cause flooding, avalanches and mudslides.

- An "Arctic Express," a mass of cold air chugging south from Alaska and Canada, bringing frigid air and potentially heavy snow and ice to the usually mild-wintered Pacific Northwest.

- An unnamed warm, moist storm system from the Gulf of Mexico drenching the already saturated Ohio, Tennessee and Mississippi valleys. Expect heavy river flooding and springlike tornadoes.

All three are likely to meet somewhere in the nation's midsection and cause even more problems, sparing only areas east of the Appalachian Mountains.

"You're talking a two- or three-times-a-century type of thing," said prediction center senior meteorologist James Wagner, who's been forecasting storms since 1965. "It's a pattern that has a little bit of everything."

While the predicted onslaught is nothing compared with the tsunami that ravaged South Asia last week, the combo storms could damage property and cause a few deaths.

The exact time and place of the predicted one-two-three punch changes slightly with every new forecast. But in its weekly "hazards assessment," the National Weather Service alerted meteorologists and disaster specialists Tuesday that flooding and frigid weather could start as early as Friday and stretch into early next week, if not longer.

"It's a situation that looks pretty potent," Ed O'Lenic, the Climate Prediction Center's operations chief, told Knight Ridder. "A large part of North America looks like it's going to be affected."

Kelly Redmond, the deputy director of the Western Regional Climate Center at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nev., where an unusual 18 inches of snow is on the ground already, said the expected heavy Western rains could cause avalanches. Since Oct. 1, Southern California and western Arizona have had three to four times the normal precipitation for the area.

"Somebody is in for something pretty darn interesting," Redmond said.

The last time a similar situation seemed to be brewing - especially in the West - was in January 1950, O'Lenic said. That month, 21 inches of snow hit Seattle, killing 13 people in an extended freeze, and Sunnyvale, Calif., got an unusual tornado.

The same scenario played out in 1937, when there was record flooding in the Ohio River Valley, said Wagner, of the prediction center.

Meteorologists caution that their predictions are only as good as their computer models. And forecasts get less accurate the farther into the future they attempt to predict.

"The models tend to overdo the formation of these really exciting weather formations for us," said Mike Wallace, a University of Washington atmospheric scientist.

Yet the more Wallace studied the models the more he became convinced that something wicked was coming this way.

"It all fits together nicely," Wallace said. "There's going to be weather in the headlines this weekend, that's for sure."

Wagner was worried about the Ohio and Tennessee River valleys as the places where the three nasty storm systems could meet, probably with snow, thunderstorms, severe ice storms and flooding. Some of those areas already are flooded.

The converging storms are being steered by high-pressure ridges off Alaska and Florida and are part of a temporary change in world climate conditions, O'Lenic said.

Over equatorial Indonesia, east of where the tsunami hit, meteorologists have identified a weather-making phenomenon called the Madden-Julian Oscillation. It's producing extra-stormy weather to its east. Similar oscillations in the north Atlantic and north Pacific are changing global weather patterns. Add to the strange mix this year's mild El Nino - a warming of the equatorial Pacific - which is unusually far west, Redmond said.

There's also another, more playful explanation: The nation's weathermen are about to converge on Southern California, and they bring bad weather with them.

The American Meteorological Society will meet next week in usually tranquil San Diego, which should be hit with the predicted storms and accompanying flooding in time for the group's gathering.

In 1987,when the meteorologists met in San Antonio for their convention, the city had ice storms. In 1993, when they gathered in Anaheim, Calif., it rained for 4.5 out of five days and triggered mudslides. Atlanta got rare snow during the meteorologists' 1996 convention. And in 2003 in Long Beach, Calif., heavy rain greeted them.

Ron McPherson, the group's recently retired executive director, said: "It always rains on the weatherman's parade."

A wintry blast closed schools and glazed roads with ice and snow Tuesday in the Rockies and on the central Plains, part of a parade of wild weather that had closed a major highway in California and caused new flooding in Arizona.

Various levels of winter weather advisories and storm warnings were in effect from Tuesday into Wednesday morning from Arizona to Connecticut, the National Weather Service said.

"It's nothing that is going to make history, but it's a pretty good-sized storm," said Pat Slattery, a spokesman for the National Weather Service office in Kansas City.

Snow and freezing rain swept through Colorado, causing scores of accidents during the morning rush hour and closing schools. One crash near Ordway in southeastern Colorado was blamed for a fatality, but authorities did not have details.

The storm was expected to bring up to a foot of snow to the Denver area and up to 2 feet to parts of the southern mountains, where avalanche warnings were posted.

An avalanche blocked U.S. 550 about 40 miles north of Durango in the state's southwest corner. [...]

Many regions of Portugal, including the southernmost province of Algarve, the country's main tourism centre, are facing their worst drought in over a decade, the national meteorology office said Tuesday.

Water levels at dams and lakes are at their lowest levels in the Algarve, the southern province of Alentejo and the northwestern province of Minho, since the early 1990s, said a meteorologist with the office, Fatima Espirito Santo.

"We need Janaury to be extremely rainy, something that only happens in 20 percent of all years, in order to bring water levels to normal," she told state radio RDP.

The national weather office forecast sees no chance of rain until at least January 15.

In October Environment Minister Luis Guedes threatened the government would ration water in the Algarve, which is home to scores of golf courses, if the province did not receive enough rain by the end of 2004.

(Criciuma): Two tornadoes that struck southern Brazil have forced hundreds of people from their homes, civil defence officials said on Tuesday.

The tornadoes destroyed three houses in Santa Catarina state on Monday, severely damaged 27 and ripped the roof shingles off some 100 houses. At least one death was linked to the twisters.

The first tornado touched down on Monday afternoon about six kilometres (four miles) outside the centre of Criciuma, civil defence officials said.

A second twister, with winds topping 115 kilometres-per-hour (71 mph), struck an hour later even closer to the centre of Criciuma - a city 900 kilometres (560 miles) southwest of Rio de Janeiro.

Amateur video showed the moment the second tornado touched down.

One elderly man died of a heart attack, which may have been related to stress caused by the high winds. About five people suffered minor injuries.

Each tornado lasted about seven minutes. Clovis Correia, a meteorologist with the state's weather service, said that on a scale of one to five, the two tornadoes registered at level one, the weakest.

Tornadoes are rare in the region and throughout Brazil, although a weak tornado struck the same region last month.

Santa Catarina was also struck by rare subtropical cycle in March that many meteorologists said was a hurricane - a controversial classification because it has long been believed that hurricanes didn't occur in the southern Atlantic.

THREE children dodged death or serious injury by minutes when a tornado slammed into a row of terraced cottages at Lymm.

The climbing frame they had been playing on was hurled into the air, over the house, the road and the nearby Bridgewater Canal before landing, a twisted wreck, in a field about 50 yards away.

Four cottages were badly damaged - three of them made uninhabitable.

The roofs were ripped off two, with slates, bricks and masonry scattered over a wide area. A third had six holes punched in the roof and its dormer destroyed.

Three families had to be evacuated from the homes in Warrington Lane, Agden, after the tornado struck on New Year's Day. [...]

It had all the makings of a genuine Midwest tornado, but the ominous funnel cloud that captivated wide-eyed residents across the Valley on Tuesday didn't spawn much more than a downpour of hail and a dousing of wind and rain.

"We're lucky it didn't touch down because it had the signature of a tornado on the radar," said meteorologist Hector Vasquez with the National Weather Service in Phoenix. "It would have done some roof damage and blown out some windows."

The funnel cloud, which took over a portion of the afternoon sky for more than an hour, blanketed portions of the West Valley with pea-sized hail after it passed over Luke Air Force Base and headed east. Vasquez said the cell, which forms through an updraft in a thunderstorm and starts to rotate, gained strength over the White Tanks Mountains before barreling into Phoenix. [...]

REGINA - While still digging out from last week's massive storm, Canada's Prairie provinces have been walloped again by more snow and bitter cold.

Dramatically low temperatures swept in again and meteorologists have again issued numerous severe wind chill warnings. Health officials are urging people to stay indoors.

In Regina, with the wind chill, it felt like -51 C on Wednesday.

"I can't remember it being this cold," said one man, "and I've been here a long time. It's pretty nippy."

While the temperature is frigid, it still isn't a record for Regina, which has had it much colder: -50 in 1885, without the wind chill.

But the impact of this type of severe cold is felt.

At the Regina airport flights have been delayed as cargo doors freeze up and equipment breaks down.

The cold has also claimed hundreds of car and trucks. Those that do start, often don't get very far.

Even schools have been shut down, and that's rare on the Prairies. School boards were worried students might be stranded on broken down buses.

In Edmonton, fire forced dozens of homeless people from a shelter, leaving the city scrambling to find alternative housing.

Doctors are warning of hypothermia-induced cardiac arrests, of exhaustion from shovelling in the extreme cold, as well as exposure. [...]

There are only two places in the United States where colliding tectonic plates could cause a major tsunami, and new studies show a new earthquake in at least one of these locations could be imminent.

The Cascadia subduction zone, a 680-mile (1,088-kilometer) fault that runs up to 50 miles (80 kilometers) off the coast of the Pacific Northwest — from Cape Mendocino in California to Vancouver Island in southern British Columbia — has experienced a cluster of four massive earthquakes during the past 1,600 years. Scientists are trying to figure out if it is about to undergo a massive shift one more time before entering a quiescent period.

"People need to know it could happen," said U.S. Geological Survey geologist Brian Atwater.

The historical record for this zone, which has the longest recorded data about its earthquakes of any major fault in the world, shows that earthquakes occur in clusters of up to five events, with an average time interval of 300 years between quakes, said Chris Goldfinger, a marine geologist at Oregon State University. Goldfinger and other scientists have been studying this subduction zone for many years.

The two most recent quakes on this fault occurred in the year 1700 (a magnitude 9 event) and approximately the year 1500. It has now been 305 years since the last event. So is the Cascadia subduction zone finished for now or on the brink of event No. 5?

"We know quite a bit about the periodicity of this fault zone and what to expect," he said. "But the key point we don’t know is whether the current cluster of earthquake activity is over yet, or does it have another event left in it."

The Cascadia subduction zone occurs where the relatively thin Juan de Fuca plate moves eastward and under the westward-moving North American Plate. When that collision results in a rupture, massive earthquakes occur. The other active subduction zone capable of producing a major earthquake-tsunami sequence is in Alaska, the site of a giant earthquake and subsequent tsunami in 1964.

Scientists say a rupture along the Cascadia fault would cause the sea floor to bounce 20 feet (6 meters) or more, setting off powerful ocean waves relatively close to shore. The first waves could hit coastal communities in 30 minutes or less -- too rapidly for the current warning systems to save lives.

A tsunami along the Atlantic Coast is considered extremely unlikely. [...]

TORONTO - Winter storms and below-normal temperatures are causing headaches from coast to coast, forcing the country's busiest airport to cancel dozens of flights and plunging the Prairies into a deep freeze.

Snow and icy rain pelted northeastern United States and southern Ontario on Thursday morning, as Toronto's Pearson International Airport cancelled more than 80 flights.

Environment Canada warned of storms from Windsor to Kingston and Ottawa, predicting up to 20 centimetres of snow in some parts, while Air Canada said travellers could brace for more delays and cancellations at Pearson until Friday.

At least 10 centimetres of snow, freezing rain and ice pellets were also expected to hit areas from Montreal to Atlantic Canada later in the day.

Bitter cold descends on Prairies

The Prairies suffered most on Thursday, as meteorologists warned of severe wind chills while health officials urged people to stay indoors.

The wind chill made it feel like –41 C in Winnipeg, which like many Prairie communities is still digging out from last week's massive storm.
A day earlier, the wind chill dipped to –51 C in Regina.

"I can't remember it being this cold," said one man, "and I've been here a long time. It's pretty nippy."

It wasn't a record for the city, where temperatures plunged to –50 C in 1885, without the wind chill. But the severe cold took its toll.

Flights were delayed at Regina's airport as cargo doors froze and equipment broke down, while hundreds of cars and trucks failed to start or bogged down in snow.

In a move that's rare on the Prairies, many schools closed as their boards feared students might get stranded on broken-down buses.

In Edmonton, fire forced dozens of homeless people from a shelter, leaving the city scrambling to find alternative housing.

Doctors are warning of hypothermia-induced cardiac arrests, exhaustion from shovelling in the extreme cold and exposure.

The freeze was expected to let up a bit later Thursday, but then return with a vengeance on the weekend, when the Prairies will be in for another bout of temperatures in the –20s.

Vancouver temperatures dip to unusual low

Meanwhile, British Columbia is experiencing its own type of deep freeze as the first snowfall of the winter began falling across the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island on Thursday morning.

Flurries were expected to dump up to five centimeters, with more snow expected through Saturday.

Temperatures in the Vancouver area dipped a few degrees below zero overnight Wednesday, which is unusually cold for the city.

Advocates for the homeless worried that some of Vancouver's most vulnerable residents won't be able to cope.

Penny Kerrigan said one young street person she encountered was typical of those her social welfare group has been helping.

"He said it was so cold he felt like his feet were going to fall off, so he had to walk."

CARSTAIRS, Alberta - RCMP say several people were taken to various hospitals following a 60-vehicle pileup in central Alberta this afternoon.

The pileup happened on an icy stretch of Highway Two near Carstairs, about 50 kilometres north of Calgary.

Mounties say none of the injuries is life threatening.

They say the accident happened in a low-lying area and oncoming drivers didn't have time to stop.

The road around the accident scene is closed while emergency officials clearing the area. [...]

The icebergs were see in the Southern Ocean, about 700 kilometres (420 miles) southeast of the South Island, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) said Thursday.

They were a hazard to all shipping, including yachts participating in the Vendeeglobe solo round-the-world race, officials said.

The Vendeeglobe website has issued a warning to competitors after one sailor sustained minor damage to his boat when he hit an iceberg just before Christmas.

NIWA scientist Lionel Carter said 15 icebergs, some up to three kilometres wide, have been recorded.

"In 30 years of working for NIWA, this is the first time I have recorded sightings of icebergs in New Zealand waters," Carter said.

Previous reportings were in the 1890s, early 1920s, 1930s and in 1948.

In 1931 icebergs were seen as far north as near Dunedin in the South Island.

He said it was too soon to blame this flotilla of ice on global warming, although the coincidence of large collapses of the Antarctic ice shelves with a rapidly changing climate could not be dismissed.

The icebergs are expected to drift towards South America.

A tropical cyclone, codenamed Kerry, which threatened to hit northern Vanuatu has weakened overnight.

However, there are warnings it could intensify.

At last report, the category one cyclone was 230 kilometres north of the capital Port Villa and moving south-west at 10 knots.

Fiji's National Weather Forecasting Centre says the cyclone is expected to pass across Vanuatu with maximum wind gusts to 40 knots, but may gain strength once it reaches open sea.

Homes have been deluged in parts of Wales, Scotland and northern England, with some houses evacuated.

Carlisle in Cumbria is "awash" with water. Police say the city is cut off with no safe routes in or out.

A spate of accidents has shut roads including sections of the M1 and M6, and a P&O ferry ran aground in heavy seas off the west coast of Scotland.

Inflatable boats

Motorists are being advised not to make journeys unless absolutely necessary.

It is the worst weather Cumbria has seen in almost 40 years, fire officials said.

"The worst affected areas have been the east coast and midlands. A lot of timber has fallen and the trees have taken down the power lines," the ESB spokesman said.

"We hope to have power restored to most parts of the country by the end of the day."

A Meteorological Office spokeswoman said that wind gusts of up to 78 miles per hour (125 kilometres per hour) had been recorded at the height of the storm.

Police said flooding and fallen trees had blocked roads but there were no reports of injuries.

(Indiana) - Rising flood water is everywhere -- on the roads, fields or yards and in many basements across the area.

Low-lying regions have been turned into virtual lakes in one of the biggest local flood events in years.

More than 40 Greene County roads were either closed or considered impassable this morning.

Torrential rains Wednesday that drenched the area with between two and three inches of precipitation continued to swell the tributaries of the west fork of the White River and the Eel River to flood levels that haven't been seen in decades. Some areas of the county have received about six inches of rainfall over the past four days in addition to snow melt from the Dec. 22-23 winter storm which has thoroughly saturated the ground.

Greene County is under an emergency flood declaration following action Wednesday afternoon by county commissioner's president Bart Beard. [...]

From Northern Kentucky to the northern Cincinnati suburbs, the region is bracing for still more flooding. Rising water Thursday had already forced people out of their homes, closed roads and canceled classes at some schools.

Forecasters project that more than a month's worth of rain in less than a week will push the Ohio River over its 52-foot flood stage by Sunday. [...]

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Flooding on the Ohio River damaged hundreds of homes and businesses Friday, a soggy calling card left by the winter storm that had brought miserable conditions across much of the central and northeastern United States.

Schools were closed in river towns in both West Virginia and Ohio, and the historic National Road was underwater in Wheeling, where the Ohio was 6 feet above flood stage on Friday morning. The river was expected to rise an additional 3 feet before cresting after lunchtime.

Across the river and about 70 miles downstream, shopkeepers in Marietta, Ohio, stacked sandbags in front of their doors and moved goods off the floors.

"It's not a ghost town, but there are no businesses open that I'm aware of," emergency official Mike Cullums said.

Damage appeared heavy on Wheeling Island, home to 1,000 homes and businesses and a stadium, county emergency officials said. A few hundred homes also had water damage in New Cumberland, about 30 miles north, emergency officials said.

Problems were less severe than in September, when the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan spawned flooding and mudslides, the officials said.

The flooding came as temperatures warmed after a deadly storm crossed from the Plains into New England this week. The messy roads have been blamed in at least 17 traffic deaths, including nine in Oklahoma, and at least three people died in Michigan while shoveling snow. [...]

A pair of storms, meanwhile, were moving in on the West Coast, bringing fears of more beach-eroding high tides and dangerous mudslides. A regional winter storm warning was extended through Monday.

One storm reached the San Francisco Bay area late Thursday and began dumping rain in Southern California early Friday. Road crews cleared an overnight mudslide north of Ventura on Friday, and cars spun out along the rain- slickened Ventura Freeway.

The second storm was expected to move south through Washington and Oregon before reaching California on Friday night. [...]

LAS VEGAS - For a moment Friday, the view over the pool at the Mandalay Bay resort stopped casino workers in their tracks.

"It's snowing in Las Vegas," hotel spokesman Gordon Absher said as a winter storm swept into southern Nevada. "We looked out over the lagoon, and there's snow over the palm trees."

"It's beautiful," said Wendy Williams, an employee at Caesars Palace hotel-casino. "People are all, like, 'What's going on?'"

It's been about a year since a rare desert snowfall on the Las Vegas Strip, and Williams said her husband reported snow was falling heavier in the northwest neighborhood of Summerlin.

A dusting on cars was also reported in hillside neighborhoods across the Las Vegas valley in Henderson.

"We've got it all over," said Lisa Anderson, a Las Vegas police spokeswoman. She said that besides traffic tie-ups and fender-benders, no major problems were reported.

A Dec. 30, 2003, snowstorm was the first in five years to deposit an inch or two of snow on cars, trees, sidewalks and roads.

The National Weather Service predicted rain throughout the weekend in southern Nevada, with wind and heavy snow in the mountains.

(San Jose, Calif.) - Brace yourselves for another wet and wild weekend.

An already waterlogged Bay Area is facing a powerful storm with a one-two punch of heavy rains and fierce winds that could cause flooding and power outages.

Winds could blow up to 60 mph on the coast and in the mountains, and the South Bay could receive as much as four inches of rain this weekend. Water district officials are predicting up to seven inches of rain in the Santa Cruz Mountains, swelling the Guadalupe River. Three to five feet of snow is expected to fall on the Sierra, with five to eight feet expected above 7,000 feet, according to the National Weather Service. [...]

Met Eireann has issued a flood warning in the south of the country, with two and a half inches of rain predicted for some areas.

Forecasters said areas prone to flooding should be on the alert and there would be a particular risk of coastal floods this evening and tonight.

Heavy rains and winds are also expected to batter the rest of the country over the next 24 hours and Met Eireann said local flooding could be experienced in many areas.

There are road closures and stock losses in Otago, with farmers on notice to move animals to higher ground.

Very heavy rain has been falling overnight in the upper Pomohaka catchment, spilling over into catchments west of Lawrence through to Alexandra.

The Otago Regional Council says tributaries of the Pomahaka River and also the Clutha River are in flood.

Duty Flood Manager Chris Arbuckle says that water is now working its way down the system. [...]

VANCOUVER (CP) - Six bus passengers got a terrifying ride Friday when near white-out conditions in the Fraser Valley led to a Greyhound sliding off the freeway and rolling onto its side.

In another accident attributed to blustery conditions that have brought snow and cold temperatures to the usually balmy Vancouver and Victoria, a child was killed on the Trans-Canada Highway east of Kamloops.

The B.C. Ambulance Service said a man, a woman and a nine-year-old girl were killed when a transport truck rolled onto a van. An infant was taken to hospital and is in fair condition, police said. The four are from Vancouver.

The crash closed the highway four kilometres east of Salmon Arm.
There were no serious injuries in the Greyhound accident but passengers had to crawl out a broken front window as the wind howled through an area known locally as the Sumas Prairie.

"I'm just really scared right now," said the young, shaken mother as others helped her keep her infant warm. "He (the bus driver) was driving beautifully and we're seeing all the cars in the ditch and then he says, 'Oh, no.' And then he said, 'Hang on' and we started going and I grabbed my baby and hung on."

Police said the conditions and not the driver were at fault. None of the passengers was seriously injured.

Despite the second day of ice, snow and below freezing temperatures in the Lower Mainland, made worse by biting winds, police in some areas were still telling motorists not to use summer tires. [ ...]

LONDON, England -- A fierce winter storm packing hurricane force winds that swept across northern Europe has left 11 dead two people missing, officials said Sunday.

The storm, accompanied by torrential downpours, caused damage in Britain, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden and Germany before dying out early Sunday.

Six people were reported killed in Sweden after being hit by falling trees and other debris. Four people died in Denmark, two of them in the town of Assens when the roof of a house fell in on them, police said.

In the North Sea city of Logstor, Denmark, authorities reported the highest water level ever in their harbor -- 2.5 meters above normal. Hundreds of people had to evacuate.

The bad weather brought train services to a halt in northern Germany were two canoeists were missing after a strong gust capsized their boat on a lake.

In Britain, the northwestern English city of Carlisle was turned into a lake in the worst flooding to hit that region in 40 years. Most access roads were still under water Sunday, cars were left floating along the streets and more than 100,000 residents had to spend the night without electricity.

Military helicopters rescued at least 15 people from the roofs, including a family with a baby and a 90-year-old man. Other residents fled to safety via boat. Three people died in the city, but police were unable to say whether the deaths were a direct result of the flooding.

Travel on roads, by ship and train were also obstructed. Numerous ferry lines on the North and Baltic seas suspended service, and a ferry grounded off the coast of western Scotland near Cairnryan.

The P&O ferry was finally refloated after more than 30 hours at sea, the coastguard said Sunday.

Two tugs managed to free the European Highlander, with 100 people on board, with the help of the high tide.

High winds from the storm that were clocked at 140 kilometers per hour in Britain, overturned 25 lorries on highways in northern England. Numerous highways and bridges were closed because of the danger.

The storm swept in as northern Germany enjoyed its warmest January night in more than a century with temperatures over 10 Celsius.

Ferries from Rostock, Germany, to Gedser, Denmark, were cancelled in the Baltic but were resumed Sunday morning. The same was true for the ferry line from Sassnitz on the German island of Ruegen to Sweden's Trelleborg.

In the North Sea, ferries between Hirtshals, Denmark, to Larvik, Norway, also remained in their harbors Saturday.

Meanwhile, authorities in Russia's second city, Saint Petersburg, breathed a sigh of relief Sunday after high water levels that threatened the former imperial capital with flooding began to recede.

Alarm bells had rung as water levels in the river Neva rose to within 30 centimeters (12 inches) of the flooding mark of 2.6 meters, causing city officials to close off embankments to traffic and shut down six subway stations.

RENO, Nev. - Areas of the Sierra Nevada, famous for paralyzing amounts of snowfall, have been hit with a dumping like they haven't seen in generations, with steep drifts stranding an Amtrak train, knocking out the Reno airport and shutting down major highways across the mountains.

The string of moisture-laden storms has dropped up to 19 feet of snow at elevations above 7,000 feet since Dec. 28 and 6 1/2 feet at lower elevations in the Reno area. Meteorologists said it was the most snow the Reno-Lake Tahoe area has seen since 1916.

"I've lived here for almost 40 years and I've never seen anything like it," Peter Walenta, 69, said Sunday from his home in Stateline, on the southern end of Lake Tahoe. "This baby just seems to be stretching on forever. Right now I'm looking out the window and it's dumping."

Storms also have caused flooding in Southern California and Arizona, deadly avalanches in Utah and ice damage and flooding in the Ohio Valley.

The weather was blamed for at least eight weekend deaths in Southern California, including a homeless man killed Sunday by a landslide. Along the storms' eastward track, avalanches killed two people Saturday in Utah, authorities said.

An avalanche Sunday afternoon killed a 13-year-old boy after knocking him from a ski lift at the Las Vegas Ski & Snowboard Resort, 45 miles northwest of Las Vegas. No other injuries have been reported.

A lull in the storm allowed the reopening Sunday of Interstate 80 over Donner Summit and U.S. 50 over Echo Summit after the highways were closed off and on for more than a day. The highways connect Sacramento, Calif., to Reno.

"The snowbanks along Interstate 80 are about 8 to 10 feet high. It's like you're going through a maze," said Jane Dulaney, spokeswoman for the Rainbow Lodge west of Donner Summit.

About 25 motorists were rescued by National Guard members in Humvees after they become stranded overnight on U.S. Highway 395 about 20 miles south of Reno, Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Jeff Bowers said. Motorists had to wait up to six hours until rescuers could reach them after daylight Sunday.

"That would have been as scary as it gets to be out there alone in those conditions," Bowers said.

The California Highway Patrol reported 720 crashes Sunday night, more than three times the number of accidents during the previous Sunday when roads were dry.

More than 220 Amtrak passengers were back in Sacramento on Sunday after spending the night stuck in their train in deep snow west of Donner Summit, spokesman Marc Magliari said.

One car of the California Zephyr, eastbound from Oakland, Calif., to Chicago, derailed in the snow Saturday evening. No one was hurt. Amtrak officials moved the passengers to other cars and the train reversed course and returned to Sacramento about 6 a.m.

Because of the derailment, a westbound Zephyr had to stop in Reno and its roughly 140 passengers completed their trip to California by bus. Service from several stations in Ventura, as well as trains from Los Angeles to Burbank, were canceled for Monday.

Reno-Tahoe International Airport was closed for 12 hours overnight for the second time in a week, and only the third time in 40 years, because plows could not keep up with the heavy snowfall, spokeswoman Trish Tucker said. [...]

Flash flood warnings were posted throughout Southern California. Residents of a mobile home park in Santa Clarita, northwest of Los Angeles, were evacuated Sunday after 5 feet of water spilled in from a creek.

"An eight-foot masonry wall that was protecting the structures gave way and water is rushing into all the houses," said Inspector John Mancha. Authorities weren't immediately sure how many people were evacuated.

A two-story home collapsed in the Studio City area above the San Fernando Valley. A man and his two children were pulled from the rubble with minor injuries.

Elsewhere, flooding along the Ohio River had chased hundreds of Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky residents from their homes. Meteorologists predicted the river would reach its highest level in eight years at Louisville, Ky., this week at about 5 feet above flood stage. Cincinnati was already more than 2 feet above its 52-foot flood stage Sunday, with forecasters expecting a crest at 57.5 feet.

Ohio Gov. Bob Taft declared a state of emergency in 28 of Ohio's 88 counties this weekend, increasing to 49 the number of counties eligible for state assistance cleaning up from the storms, Ohio Emergency Management Agency spokesman Mark Patchen said Sunday. Ohio authorities believe carbon monoxide poisoning killed five people using generators for electricity since Friday.

Indiana officials said some of the worst flooding since 1937 had isolated pockets across the southern part of the state, forcing hundreds of people from their homes.

The storm that fed the flooding also knocked out power last week in parts of western and northern Ohio. Utilities said Sunday that about 66,000 customers remained without electricity, down from a peak of 250,000. More than 37,000 customers were still blacked out Sunday in Pennsylvania, and 56,500 were without power in Indiana.

LOS ANGELES - As many as 200 vehicles got stuck in deep snow early today in the San Bernardino Mountains as the latest in a series of storms struck California.

Snow piled up 3 to 4 feet deep along a 15-mile stretch of state highway between the Snow Valley ski resort and Big Bear dam, said Tracey Martinez, a spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County fire department.

"People were panicking and calling 911 on their cell phones,'' Martinez said. "It's going to take us awhile to get all the folks out of there.''

No injuries were reported as rescue crews used tracked vehicles to pick up the snowbound motorists in the mountains about 90 miles east of Los Angeles. [...]