The storm was expected to move off the coast Wednesday night, after dumping up to 5 inches of rain on parts of Virginia and Maryland.

By midday, its center was slowly moving north of Raleigh, N.C., where as much as 5 inches of rain fell and the storm was blamed for the drowning death of a 13-year-old boy.

Authorities said Molton Watson IV was playing in a mobile home park about 30 miles northeast of the city when he chased a ball into a flooded culvert. The swift current sucked the boy into a drainpipe.

"His friend was right there with him, but he just couldn't grab him," Franklin County Sheriff Jerry Jones said.

In downtown Raleigh, a shopping mall was closed because of flooded parking areas and roads.

National Weather Service meteorologist Brandon Vincent in North Carolina said the threat of tornadoes would continue as high-level winds continued to swirl.

"These remnant tropical systems, even though it may not be windy at the ground, it's kind of hard to kill the circulation aloft," Vincent said. "The winds above the ground can still be kind of strong."

After last year's record 28 named storms and 15 hurricanes, Alberto's approach over the Gulf of Mexico caused a brief scare and prompted a call for more than 20,000 people to evacuate Florida's gulf coast. But no serious injuries or widespread damage was reported there, and officials said it was a good tune-up for the long hurricane season ahead. It was the first named storm of the June-November Atlantic hurricane season.

Alberto's winds were about 50 mph when it came ashore near Adams Beach, Fla., still strong enough to be a tropical storm, but well below the 74-mph threshold for a hurricane.

Instead of a disaster, Alberto's rainfall may turn out to be a blessing for Florida's efforts to battle wildfires and for farmers in Georgia who were worried about drought.

"It's definitely a million-dollar rain," said Joe McManus, a marketing specialist with the Georgia Farm Bureau in Macon. "It could save some cotton and peanut fields."

Officials said the storm also gave them real-world practice on the lessons learned from the slow response to some of last year's storms. Hurricane specialists said they ran into a few computer glitches but nothing that couldn't be fixed before the next storm.

"You can train all you want, but nothing beats the real deal," said Florida Emergency Management spokesman Mike Stone.

In Crystal River, Fla., water was thigh-high in the heart of the town on Tuesday as the storm hit, but it had receded by Wednesday. Many people seemed to accept flooding as part of coastal life - and sighed with relief that it wasn't worse.

"I think overall it could have been worse," said Leslie Sturmer, whose Cedar Key, Fla., neighborhood was briefly cut off from the rest of the state by flooding. "We would have evacuated if there was a serious storm, but this wasn't."

The quake could be felt in San Francisco, about 70 miles north of the epicenter.

No one was hurt and there were no reports of damage, according to the Santa Clara County sheriff's department and police in Gilroy, about 8 miles from where the quake struck.

A 10-pound Canada goose can produce four pounds of nitrate- and phosphate-rich feces every day it waddles across the beaches, lawns and golf courses of Tahoe.

The birds find refuge on Tahoe, one of the most protected lakes in the nation, when they molt their primary wing feathers in the spring and can't fly.

Spencer and other biologists from USDA Wildlife Services hope to trap up to 400 Canada geese at several Tahoe locations this week, at the request of property owners and managers.

"We only work where we are wanted, where there is damage occuring," Spencer said.

The geese will be innoculated for disease and released to a wildlife management area in eastern Nevada. About 1 percent of juveniles may return, and about 15 percent of adults will return.

The birds are protected by the Federal Migratory Bird Act, but can be hunted. In recent years, rules have loosened to help urban areas deal with the birds.

The Tahoe roundup is part of a regionwide effort. The geese also pose a threat to jets flying in and out of the Reno Airport, Spencer said.

Canada geese have stopped migrating in a triangle that includes Tahoe, Reno and Carson City. Abundant food sources from turf landscaping has resulted in increased densities within that triangle.

"I guarantee you, in the old days, Lake Tahoe was just a stopover place," Spencer said.

Fifteen agencies are involved in the roundup, including the Humane Society, which will provide food for the captured birds.

The red alert had been downgraded Tuesday morning after the volcano's activities appeared to be slowing.

But on Wednesday at around midday, it sent searing clouds - indicative of a typical eruption at Indonesia's second most active volcano - down a gully running down the southern slope for about 30 minutes, Triyani said.

Almost three hours later, the volcano spewed a continuous cascade of clouds that reached up to six kilometers down the same gully - one kilometre further than earlier.

"The first thing is that the clouds have now reached six kilometers (down the slopes)," the head of the Merapi monitoring section at the vulcanology office in Yogyakarta, Subandriyo, told ElShinta radio when asked about the reasons behind the reinstatement of the alert.

"The other important thing is that clouds are descending continuously."

Subandriyo said the clouds had left deposits behind, making the natural channels they were following shallower and allowing them to reach further down the slopes.

He said authorities had been asked to re-evacuate residents from the earlier danger zone and all those living within a radius of seven kilometers from the peak.

"We began re-evacuating people again at around 4:00 pm this afternoon," said Warsito, an official from the district disaster management center in Sleman, one of three affected districts.

Agus Pujiwinarno, head of Kepuharjo village in Sleman, said he had received unverified reports that two buildings had been burned by the clouds. If confirmed, it would be the first damage to property caused by Merapi.

"I have received reports, which although I have not yet verified appear to be true, saying that two buildings at the Bebeng volcano observation site have been burned by clouds," he said.

The buildings - an open hall and vulcanoloy post - were just over six kilometres from the peak, he said.

"But there were no victims, as everyone had already vacated the site."

ElShinta radio reported that panic gripped people at Srumbung in Magelang district on Merapi's western slopes, an area not declared under threat, when they saw the clouds being carried by the wind towards them.

Villagers elsewhere fled back to the safe shelters they had left just a few hours earlier, it reporter without giving figures. Scientists initially declared a top alert on Merapi on May 13.

Merapi has shown fluctuating volcanic activity since then but had notably declined since a lava dome that was forming at its peak partially collapsed last Friday.

Its deadliest eruption was in 1930 when more than 1,300 people were killed.

Several years of above-average temperatures, below-average rainfall and extraction of water for farms, holiday homes and population densification are driving the big crunch.

"You're talking about the ideal conditions for a drought, of a lack of water and rising temperature," said Carlo Lavalle, an expert in risk analysis at the European Union's Joint Research Centre in Ispra, Italy.

In Spain, reservoirs and water tables are at their lowest levels in 10 years, failing to recharge after last year's drought, which was the worst since reliable record-keeping began in 1947.

The worst exposed region is the south, which has developed fast in the past two decades with thirsty irrigated crops, golf courses and tourist resorts.

In southeastern England, reserves of water are only at 54 percent of capacity, after the driest winter since 1963-4.

Specialists say 10 weeks of intense rain are needed to redress the balance; a damp May, which gave twice that month's average rainfall, has not even made a significant dent in the problem.

As a result, drought orders and other restrictions have been issued to 13 million people for the first time in this region in 11 years, amounting to bans on hosepipes, sprinklers, car washing, the filling of swimming pools and other non-essential uses.

Local suppliers are scrambling for alternative sources, looking at the possibility of transporting water by tanker ship from Scotland and Norway - and even of building a desalination plant for London.

In France, the authorities have for months been building public awareness that the Atlantic and Mediterranean regions face big problems of water scarcity.

On June 7, Agriculture Minister Dominique Bussereau revived a national drought committee to monitor water availability for farms. Water restrictions have already begun in rural areas of the Charente-Maritimes and Deux-Sevres department in the west, and in the Tarn department, in the southwest.

In Italy, most of the country has still to recover from the 2003 drought, a smaller version of which hit northern regions again in 2005. The country is officially classified along with Cyprus, Italy and Spain as "water-stressed," meaning that withdrawal of water is 20 percent more than totally available supplies.

In Portugal, 2005 brought the worst drought in 60 years, prompting the government to propose a programme of dam construction and improved water management.

The 2003 drought hit continental central and western Europe for much of July and August that year.

It inflicted economic costs, mainly in shrivelled crops and burned forests, of more than 12 billion euros (15.6 billion dollars), according to the European Commission. The heatwave also cost tens of thousands of lives, principally among the elderly and poor in health.

Ronan Uhel, head of spatial analysis at the European Environment Agency (EAA) in Copenhagen, said the data pointed to a trend that had been continuing for at least a decade - and global warming is a clear factor.

"Summers are getting hotter, demand for water is increasing and at the same time, rainfall is decreasing," he said.

The shift in precipitation has been especially felt in the Iberian peninsula, western France, southern Britain and Ireland, which get their rainfall from the warm, moist winds off the Atlantic.

On the other hand, northern latitudes and central and eastern Europe, as well as northern Britain, have had normal or even above-average rainfall this year.

In an editorial at Norwegian science news site forskning.no, Professor Kaare Aksnes said it was regrettable that this comparison had been made, and that it was extremely exaggerated. Aksnes also said it was regrettable that the statement had apparently emanated from the Institute.

Aksnes goes on to explain that a meteor capable of a Hiroshima-like impact would almost completely burn up as it entered Earth's atmosphere, and that the remnants would hit the earth far too slowly - though impacts of that intensity have of course occurred. He estimates the North Troms impact to have been comparable to "a powerful conventional bomb".

The original reactions to the witness reports of the meteor, also reported on forskning.no, are attributed to popular astronomer Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegaard, and were slightly guarded and very excited. Røed Ødegaard wrote the original report about the meteorite on the Institute's web site.

"We cannot be completely sure, but the light and sound phenomena were exceptional. It indicates that there has been a great deal of energy involved," Røed Ødegaard said then.

Seismic research center NORSAR registered powerful sound phenomena at their Karasjok measuring station, as well as seismic disturbances.

"We have run out of words for how exciting this is," Røed Ødegaard said at the time.

"There is midnight sun in the area and objects in the sky must therefore shine very strongly to be visible at all. The object is descried as a reddish ball of fire and lit up like a powerful flash. The brightness must have been exceptional," Røed Ødegaard said.