Britain is set for more bad weather with heavy rain and snow expected to arrive in time for the Easter holidays.

Downpours are expected to batter the UK with up to 40mm of rain due to fall over parts of the North, followed by more snow with bitterly cold northerly winds sending temperatures plummeting to -4C.

A Met Office spokesperson said that the mild temperatures would drop in the coming days with areas of low pressure bringing on heavy showers into the new week.

Families hoping for sunnier Spring-time weather over the Easter holidays could be left bitterly disappointed as more frost and snow is expected over parts of the North East and into the North.

When Saharan dust storms of near record density meet late season blizzards across Eastern and Southern Europe, orange snows blanket ranges and visible dust layers mark the hourly feet of snow dumping on the continent. From Sochi to Crete, eerie orange snows cover peaks and deep snows in Greece add to the strangeness of it all. More snows in Algeria and another more dense dust storm is on the way.

A growing network of lakes on the Greenland ice sheet has been found to drain in a chain reaction that speeds up the flow of the ice sheet, threatening its stability.

Researchers from the UK, Norway, US and Sweden have used a combination of 3D computer modelling and real-world observations to show the previously unknown, yet profound dynamic consequences tied to a growing number of lakes forming on the Greenland ice sheet.

Lakes form on the surface of the Greenland ice sheet each summer as the weather warms. Many exist for weeks or months, but drain in just a few hours through more than a kilometre of ice, transferring huge quantities of water and heat to the base of the ice sheet. The affected areas include sensitive regions of the ice sheet interior where the impact on ice flow is potentially large.

Previously, it had been thought that these 'drainage events' were isolated incidents, but the new research, led by the University of Cambridge, shows that the lakes form a massive network and become increasingly interconnected as the weather warms. When one lake drains, the water quickly spreads under the ice sheet, which responds by flowing faster. The faster flow opens new fractures on the surface and these fractures act as conduits for the drainage of other lakes. This starts a chain reaction that can drain many other lakes, some as far as 80 kilometres away.

These cascading events - including one case where 124 lakes drained in just five days - can temporarily accelerate ice flow by as much as 400%, which makes the ice sheet less stable, and increases the rate of associated sea level rise. The results are reported in the journal Nature Communications.

The study demonstrates how forces within the ice sheet can change abruptly from one day to the next, causing solid ice to fracture suddenly. The model developed by the international team shows that lakes forming in stable areas of the ice sheet drain when fractures open in response to a high tensile shock force acting along drainage paths of water flowing beneath the ice sheet when other lakes drain far away.

More than 60 dolphins have been found stranded on a popular beach resort - and experts have said killer whales could be responsible.

Sixty-one short-beaked common dolphins were found washed up in Puerto Madryn, an Argentinian city in northern Patagonia.

According to local authorities, 49 of them died on the coast of the El Doradillo Protected Natural Area while 12 were returned to the sea alive.

A 4-year-old boy in Converse was killed following an attack by his family's pet dog Sunday afternoon, officials said.

A Bexar County Sheriff's Office statement said the boy, identified later as Noah Trevino by the Bexar County Medical Examiner, was airlifted to an area hospital in serious life-threatening condition after being found with his neck in the jaws of the large, mixed-breed dog. The incident occurred in the backyard of Trevino's home on the 8900 block of Twincreek Farm.

Sheriff's Sgt. Elizabeth Gonzalez said the family freed Trevino from the dog's hold and began performing CPR until deputies arrived and took over.

Trevino was later pronounced dead at the hospital.

A shallow 6.6 magnitude earthquake struck off Papua New Guinea on Monday (March 26), the US Geological Survey said, the latest in a series to hit the region in recent days, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

The quake struck 180km west of the town of Rabaul, on New Britain island, at a depth of 10 km, the USGS said. The quake was initially recorded with a magnitude of 7.0 but was later downgraded. There was no immediate tsunami warning.

"We are okay. No one is injured," said Sylvia Ombul, night desk supervisor at the Kimbe Bay Hotel in the port town of Kimbe, about 140 km to the west of the quake.

Date & time: Sun, 25 Mar 20:14:48 UTC

Magnitude: 6.5

Depth: 181.0 km

Epicenter latitude / longitude: 6.7°S / 129.72°E [Map]

Nearest volcano: Nila (31 km)

Primary data source: GFZ

It began with sinkholes. Two of them, gaping mouths to nowhere opening up as if to swallow the town of Wink, Texas. As they expanded, there were fears they might collide, morphing into one giant void.

They first emerged in 1980, and things haven't gotten better since. Now, an unprecedented study reveals Wink and its vast sinkholes are just a tiny part of a much bigger problem - a vast stretch of historical oil fields that are heaving and sinking, covering an area almost the size of Connecticut.

"The ground movement we're seeing is not normal," explains geophysicist Zhong Lu from Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

"The ground doesn't typically do this without some cause."

Lu was part of a team who in 2016 used satellite data to reveal that the two Wink sinkholes weren't frozen in place, but could be about to expand in response to subsidence detected in and around the town.

Heavy rains have disrupted planting in most parts of Narok county.

This is because mechanised farming has been rendered impossible.

Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry Narok branch chairman David Mpatiany said the delay in planting may hurt crop production.

"We are happy the rains have come but it is unfortunate that most of the farmers, especially those who practice large-scale farming, can do little in their farms due to the soggy soil," he said.

Mpatiany said farmers will have to wait for the rains to subside so they can plant wheat, maize, barley, beans and sorghum.

According to the Ag Ministry, 1.9 Ml ha of Russian winter cereals (11.3% out of a total 17.1 Ml) were fertilized by March 16, 2018 against 4.7 Ml ha in 2017, reports UkrAgroConsult.

By the same date, spring planting was completed on 32.3 Th ha (0.1% of the projected area of 53.37 Ml ha). This included 9.4 Th ha in Krasnodar region, 1 Th ha in Chechnya and 0.2 Th ha in Adygea. 456.4 Th ha was already seeded to spring crops by the same date last year.

The start of planting is delayed in some regions of the Southern and North-Caucasian federal districts due to weather conditions and snow cover in single areas.