Highway 17 is closed in both directions through Tuesday night, Highway 9 is blocked in several areas, and flooding is reported throughout Santa Cruz County, with thousands without power after roughly 6 inches of rain fell the last 24 hours. The latest in a series of storms triggered mudslides, uprooted trees and knocked out power lines from south county lowlands to high in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

The San Lorenzo River breached its banks and flooded Highway 9 near Paradise Park about noon. The California Highway Patrol blocked Highway 9 near the Tannery Arts Center.

At about 1 p.m., Soquel Creek in Capitola Village rose to just a few feet from its banks near the river mouth at Capitola Beach. Aptos Creek in Rio del Mar had not crested and had not breached its banks by 1:30 p.m. near the mouth at Seacliff State Beach.

A massive mudslide struck three vehicles on Highway 17 at roughly 10:15 a.m., flipping one truck over, closing the highway and trapping hundreds of drivers unable to proceed. The California Highway Patrol has shut down both lanes of Highway 17 near Jarvis Road, according to CHP Officer Trista Drake, who said no one was hurt when the slide hit the vehicles. The highway near the slide area would be closed in both directions through Tuesday night, she said. "The hill is unstable and the slide keeps spilling over into the other lanes," Drake said.

The San Lorenzo River is overflowing its banks in several spots between Santa Cruz and Felton where the river rose to major flood stage. In downtown Santa Cruz, the river reached moderate flood stage -- 23.3 feet -- just after noon, and it's still rising, KSBW meteorologist Art Jarrett said.

Santa Cruz County officials sounded a flood warning siren Tuesday morning, notifying Felton Grove residents of impending danger. Firefighters rescued residents who were trapped inside their homes by flood waters. Reporter Phil Gomez witnessed the river overflowing onto Highway 9 at Sycamore Grove, just north of Santa Cruz. Sycamore Grove looks like a lake.

"Highway 9 is underwater. I've never seen the San Lorenzo River go over Highway 9," Gomez said.

County spokesman Jason Hoppin said, "We have several rivers at or approaching flood stage (San Lorenzo, Soquel and Corralitos), with rain expected to continue this afternoon. We are activating the Emergency Operations Center."

An atmospheric river flowing off the Pacific Ocean pounded Santa Cruz County with rain throughout Monday night and into Tuesday morning. More heavy rain is forecast for this afternoon, and county officials are bracing for more rivers and creeks possibly overflowing in a few hours.

"It's going to get worse before it gets better," Hoppin said.

KSBW Meteorologist Lee Solomon reported flash flooding in Paradise Park, and the Tannery Arts Center in Santa Cruz.

Solomon said, "The Santa Cruz Mountains have received a deluge. Way too much rain in a very short period of time. A flash flood is occurring in the Paradise Park area. Move to higher ground immediately."

NOAA's San Lorenzo River gauge at Big Trees recorded water levels rising to 23 1/2 feet at noon. The river's major flood stage is 21.8 feet, and minor flood stage is 16.1 feet.

Over in Scotts Valley, Highway 17 is closed in all directions. A mudslide caused one driver's SUV to flip and crash on Highway 17's northbound lanes, near Vinehill Road. The California Highway Patrol is diverting all drivers off the highway, and there is no estimated time for reopening.

"The slide is unstable," the CHP said.

Tuesday's atmospheric river-powered storm has so far caused more severe problems than the first atmospheric river that blasted the Central Coast in January.

"The ground is already soaked, so all of this rain is running into the riverbeds," Hoppin said.

He added that while the Pajaro River takes a long time to rise, the San Lorenzo River, Soquel Creek, and Corralitos Creek rise rapidly during storms.

A house collapsed, major roads slowed to a crawl, lightning strikes closed the airport and even the Salvation Army needed emergency help as a series of intense thunderstorms drenched many parts of Sydney.

The Tuesday morning storm cells formed with little warning, dumping almost as much rain on the city in an hour as collected in all of January, overwhelming drains and roadways.

Another bout of rain and possible storms may hit Sydney on Wednesday, although the worst of the weather may be over by morning peak hour, Weatherzone said.

Tuesday's tempests had structural engineers racing to a unit complex in Ewart Street, Marrickville, after part of a 50-metre long pond at the back of the property collapsed, threatening to take the block with it.

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At least 23 U.S. states are under winter weather alerts, and a tornado watch has been issued for parts of the Southeast as most of the country braces for severe weather this week.

"We are in a very active weather pattern all across the country, from California to New York," ABC News senior meteorologist Max Golembo said.

An atmospheric river, which draws massive amounts of water vapor from the Pacific Ocean, has taken aim at California, where the National Weather Service has issued flash flood and flood watches through Friday.

As we all know, Iceland is a profoundly volcanic place with a variety of eruption styles - from spewing out a little or a lot of lava, to exploding so violently that Europe gets blanketed in ash.

Well, as reported by the Iceland Monitor, the nation's soothsaying geophysicist Páll Einarsson claims that four of the country's angry mountains are exhibiting pre-eruptive conditions. Apart from that, however, little information has been given.

The volcanoes in question are Katla, Hekla, Bárðarbunga, and Grímsvötn. With no data or references given in the post, we decided to do a little digging ourselves.

So what of Katla? Well, it's a rather sizable volcano that has indeed been showing signs of restlessness recently, with tremors hitting around the 4.6M mark. These quakes are possibly indications of magma ascending upwards through the crust and causing it to violently fracture, but as of yet, there's no definitive proof of this.

A man has been struck by lightning and killed while fighting a grassfire in the New South Wales central west.

It is understood the 22-year-old was struck about 4:00pm on Tuesday at a sheep property at Moolarben near Mudgee.

A severe storm swept the area earlier in the day, with lightning strikes igniting several fast-moving grassfires at the sheep property on Ulan Road.

Firefighters from the New South Wales Rural Fire Service battled tough conditions but managed to extinguish the fires.

Sparwood, Castlegar, Cranbrook break official Environment Canada daily snowfall record

Communities in the B.C. southern Interior are coping with a record-breaking February snowfall resulting in highway mayhem, school closures and extreme avalanche warnings.

The small town of Sparwood in the Elk Valley has already received 60 centimetres of fresh snow Monday, demolishing the previous record of 18.3. Cranbrook and Castlegar also both broke snowfall records two days in a row.

"A lot of areas are getting hit pretty hard," said Jennifer Hay, a meteorologist with Environment Canada.

"It's going to go on for the next few days. We'll definitely have a few breaks in there, but we won't see a change in the pattern until probably Friday."

Parts of eastern New Orleans are looking like a disaster area following a line of severe weather that blew through the city on Tuesday morning.
An enormous storm ended up flipping over cars, tore the roofs off homes, ripped through a gas station canopy, broke tall power poles off their foundations, flipped a food truck upside-down and left a couch resting improbably on a pile of debris in the middle of a road.

Hail as big as ping-pong balls was observed near Kenner, Louisiana. More than 10,000 homes and businesses lost power in southeastern Louisiana because of the storms.

Severe thunderstorms swept across the Gulf Coast region, where at least four damaging tornadoes and large hail were observed in parts of southeastern Louisiana, including New Orleans.


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After severe thunderstorms hit Sydney this morning, the region is battling flooding and continued poor weather conditions.

While the Bureau of Meterology says the immediate threat of the storms has passed, the situation will continue to be monitored.

Here's a look at the storm over Greater Sydney.

The torrential rain has caused flash flooding, turning Sydney streets into rivers causing chaos for commuters.

For the second time in less than a week, someone spotted a dead whale off the shores of Hampton Roads.

Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center (VAMSC) spokesman Matt Klepeisz told 13News Now that the body of the whale was near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.

Someone with the Virginia Marine Resources Commision reported seeing the whale Sunday.

Members of the VAMSC's Stranding Response Team were working to determine the exact location as well as how to reach the whale and bring its body to shore.

On February 2, stranding response team members brought the body of a whale that was floating near the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel to shore.