Heavy rain swept across many parts of northern Italy yesterday, Monday 14 September, causing flooding and landslides. A regional meteorological agency says that some areas of Emilia-Romagna saw over 300 mm of rain fall in just 4 hours.

One man has died after his car was swept away by floods in Ponte dell'Olio in Piacenza province, Emilia-Romagna, according to Italian news agency ANSA. Two other men, also in Piacenza province, are still missing. The worst affected villages and towns in the province include Farini, Pontedellolio, Ferriere, Bettola, Ottone and Corte Brugnatella.

Flooding was also reported in parts of Veneto region, where a motorway was blocked by landslides, and also in the port city of Genoa and other areas of the Liguria region.

Downpours moved through Connecticut on Sunday and in one Milford neighborhood, a waterspout formed over the ocean and came ashore.

Waterspouts aren't unusual in this part of the country but they don't often come ashore.

Richard Shain captured amazing footage of the waterspout at Anchor Beach in the borough of Woodmont in Milford around 10 a.m. Sunday.

The waterspout struggled to move over the sea wall. In the process, it tossed a heavy paddle board through the air and knocked a kayak into the water. Lawn chairs were blown around and water from a pool was sloshed out onto the nearby ground.

This is the moment a cheeky deer broke into a hotel and ran amok in the corridors as stunned guest could do nothing but watch.

The animal was caught on CCTV as it launched itself through the window, completely shattering the glass at the New Victoria Inn in York, Nebraska.

It is thought the incident occurred in August, although the video is continuing to circulate via social media sites.

A private sanitation truck is sinking into an elevated parking deck in Flatbush.

The truck began sinking into the structure in the 1600 block of Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn just after 3 a.m. Tuesday.

The driver was able to get out of the truck as two sections of the parking deck collapsed under the vehicle.

Police closed the parking lot, where there is a strip mall nearby, to evaluate its stability.

A freight line maintained by the Long Island Rail Road that runs under the structure was halted.

At least five climbers have been killed in an avalanche in the French Alps on Tuesday, according to French police. Two climbers remain missing.

At least five climbers were killed in an avalanche in the French Alps on Tuesday with another two missing, according to the first reports.

The avalanche occurred in the Massif des Ecrins on the slopes of the mountain Dome des neiges des Ecrins around midday.

The mountain's summit stands at 4,015 metres and it is popular with climbers due to the relative ease of the ascent, compared to other peaks in the area.

"There are victims, there will be several dead," the local prefecture in the Hautes-Alpes told AFP adding that one member of the group had survived.

"One person is thought to be ok or slightly injured," said the official, Pierre Besnard.

The victims were two Germans and three from the Czech Republic, according to the Le Parisien newspaper, which added that a Polish national was among those injured.

After four years of drought California is now at its driest for 500 years, scientists have found. The heat has left the Golden State with almost no snowpack in the mountains, which is critical for replenishing the state's water reservoirs.

An analysis of blue oak tree rings in the state's Central Valley has led scientists to "astonishing" results.

Scientists have compared their measurements of tree-ring data to previous Sierra Nevada snowpack level recordings that have been recorded since the 1930's and found that oak trees' growth seem to accurately reflect the lowest snowpack seasons.

"We combined an extensive compilation of blue oak tree-ring series that reflects large-scale California winter precipitation anomalies with a California February-March temperature reconstruction in a reconstruction that explains 63 percent of the Sierra Nevada snow water equivalent variance over the instrumental period," the scientists wrote.

Eight people died and five others are missing after a flash flood washed away vehicles at the Utah/Arizona border, the Hildale, Utah, fire department said.

All the victims are mothers and small children, Assistant Fire Chief Kevin Barlow said. The youngest child was about 4 years old.

The flooding ravaged a community that straddles the border from Hildale, Utah, to Colorado City, Arizona.

A young Australian man has been reportedly killed by what was believed to be a lightning strike when he was hiking at a popular trail in the US.

Jonathan Crowden, from Alfredton, west of Melbourne, was hiking alone on Sunday afternoon (local time) at the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, according to a park official.

But the trip of a lifetime ended in tragedy for the 21-year-old after his deceased body was found about 1.6 kilometres down the South Kaibab Trail.

A witness alerted the canyon's communication centre to report seeing a man being struck by a suspected lightning.

Three people lost their lives as lightning struck them and a person was left injured at Dupally village in Renjal Mandal, Nizamabad district on Tuesday.

Reports state that the three farm labourers engaged in their farm work were struck by lightning and immediately died. A woman who was injured in the incident was rushed to a nearby hospital but her condition is said to be critical.

With heavy rains pouring down in Telangana state, many districts have experienced the strong gales. The lightning incidents, lately have increased in both Telangana and AP as earlier 20 people were killed in AP on the same day due to lightning.

Escaping the Valley Fire in Anderson Springs / YouTube / mulletFive575102As the catastrophic Valley Fire spread through Lake County, California, one YouTube user recorded his daring escape from his home down apocalyptic roads flanked by blazing pines. During the series of videos, he defied death on his way to safety.

The inferno ripped through 50,000 acres in just 36 hours, destroying as many as 1,000 homes and forcing more than 19,000 residents to flee the area. On Saturday night, with no warning, YouTube user mulletFive, realized he and his wife had to escape. He captured three videos of their harrowing flight to safety out of Anderson Springs.


"We are the last house at the very back of the Springs, down in a gulch. There was no smoke or ash coming our way, and there were no sirens or air support nearby, so we honestly didn't know how close it was," mulletFive wrote in a YouTube comment.

"Once we drove up out of our gulch, we realized how close it was. There were no sirens or air support because there was zero firefighting effort in Anderson Springs," he added.


"[W]e did wait way too long to get out," he wrote. "In retrospect, we should have gone out for a drive to find out what was going on, but we were a little preoccupied with packing."

On Sunday, the inferno was still 0 percent contained, and one person was reported dead due to the Valley Fire.

READ MORE: California burning: One dead, 1,000s evacuated as wildfires scorch 400 homes (PHOTOS)

MulletFive wrote that he thought that most of the houses he passed during his dangerous drive would have been consumed by fire. He and his wife are waiting to receive the all-clear to go back home to inspect the damage, but he expects that to be several more days.

"I am in the Bay Area waiting for the roads to reopen, and as soon as they do I will shoot video driving around the Springs and post it ASAP," he wrote Sunday evening.


As of 8 a.m. local time on Monday, the fire was 5 percent contained and it had burned through 61,000 acres.

"Hundreds of homes and hundreds of other structures destroyed," the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection noted on its website.