Perth has had its driest March in 31 years.

There was no rain recorded in the city last month - the average for March is 20 millimetres.

Meteorologist Glen Cook says the figures are nothing to be worried about.

"In terms of it being dry that's not so significant but as the months go on now when we're into April we would be expecting a significantly greater amount of rainfall and so we'd want the rainfall to start soon," he said.

The Bureau of Meteorology says March 22 was the latest day on record in the first six months of a year to reach 41 degrees. It was 41.4 degrees.

Large numbers of locusts have flown into the Mudgee, Dunedoo and Gulgong districts.

The locusts originated in Queensland and are part of the same group which flew into Dubbo last month.

Mal Leeson is a senior ranger with the Mudgee/Merriwa Rural Lands Protection Board and says like Dubbo, the Mudgee district is too populated to allow control by aerial spraying. [...]

FORT COLLINS, Colo. - Authorities asked dozens of families to evacuate Thursday as a 2,000-acre wildfire turned toward a subdivision in the foothills of northern Colorado.

The evacuation was voluntary, but fire information officer John Bustos said the blaze was "very active" and was being fed by wind gusting to 35 mph. The fire nearly doubled in size overnight.

It was unclear how many people live in the subdivision, but Bustos said there were about 80 homes in the community west of Fort Collins. Automated warning calls were placed to the homes before dawn.

The fire is an ominous sign of what could be a long, brutal fire season. Colorado remains mired in a drought with no sign of relief. [...]

FORT COLLINS, Colo. - The Atlantic will probably see 14 named storms this year, eight of them hurricanes and three of them intense hurricanes, a storm researcher said Friday.

The revised forecast by William Gray and his team at Colorado State University includes one more named storm than the previous forecast.

The long-term average is about 10 named storms, including six hurricanes. Of those, two are "intense" hurricanes, defined as those with sustained wind of at least 111 mph.

The Colorado State team also warned the chances of at least one intense hurricane making landfall in the United States is 71 percent, much higher than the long-term average of 52 percent.

WINDHOEK (AFP) - More than 15,000 people were facing floods in north-eastern Namibia as water levels rose due to heavy rains in the Zambezi river's catchment area, officials said.

"It is estimated that some 15,000 to 20,000 people are already affected by the floods, compared to last year when some 12,000 people were in need of assistance," said Razia Essack-Kauaria, secretary general of the Namibian Red Cross Society (NRS). [...]

SELKIRK -- Spring flooding threw truck-sized hunks of ice over a highway near Selkirk yesterday, while flooding in Winnipeg caused Sturgeon Creek to cascade over Ness Avenue.

The provincial government opened the Red River Floodway in Winnipeg at about 6:30 p.m. yesterday, to ensure homes in Winnipeg stay high and dry.

In Selkirk, kilometres of land and highway were submerged by ice and frigid water. Luckily, no homes are in the flooded areas. [...]

The Selkirk Bridge, which connects Highway 435 to Selkirk, was closed to traffic. The area was flooded after ice sheets on the Red broke Wednesday night, about a month earlier than normal.

In Winnipeg, ice that jammed in a culvert forced Sturgeon Creek to spill over a bridge on Ness Avenue. [...]

A long-armed excavator helped free the ice jammed at the Ness Avenue bridge yesterday. When the water had receded, it left huge blocks of ice on the sidewalk, torn-up asphalt and a crippled fence. [...]

A flash flood killed at least 31 people as it swept through a northern Mexican city.

Enrique Martinez, governor of Coahuila state, said two of those killed in Piedras Negras were children. He called the flooding some of the worst in the history of the US-Mexico border region, saying "the magnitude of destruction is enormous".

Throughout the day, authorities said as many as 75 people had yet to be accounted for, but the governor said many of those originally reported missing had been located. [...]

SASKATOON - Farmers in the west central part of the province could be heading into another serious drought this year.

Experts at the Canadian Wheat Board say soil moisture in that part of Saskatchewan is now as low as it was two years ago, when the province experienced the worst drought in a century. Lorne Sheppard, who has been farming for more than 30 years near Lucky Lake, says his land has never been this dry.

"There's been absolutely zero runoff," says Sheppard. "I've never seen anything like it. There isn't a drop of water that ran through any culvert that I know of, and the sloughs are all dry." Sheppard says if it doesn't rain soon, he doesn't know what he will plant, because nothing will germinate. [...]

Environmental groups are calling for urgent action to slow deforestation in Brazil's Amazon jungle.

About 9,170 square miles (23,750 sq km) of forest were lost in 2003, just up from 8,983 square miles (23,266 sq km) in 2002, the Brazilian government says. The scale is not as high as in the mid-1990s, but it confirms the world's largest forest is disappearing rapidly.

Rising exports of beef and soya in Brazil are said to encourage farmers to clear the forest for farms. Scientists fear the clearances could affect the global climate as well as threatening thousands of unique plant and animal species.

"I am worried - the figures are too high," said Rosa Lemos de Sa of conservation group WWF Brazil.

WINDHOEK (Reuters) - Flooding from the rain-swollen Zambezi have killed at least six people in northern Namibia and forced 20,000 people in the area to be evacuated, officials said on Wednesday.

Authorities in the southwest African country say the floods are the worst since 1958, and the Red Cross has launched a provisional appeal for $630,000 to provide aid to 50,000 people in the coming months. [...]

Windhoek - Six people, including a baby and an eight-year-old boy, have drowned in north-eastern Namibia since being hit by the worst floods in decades, police reported on Wednesday. The Namibian police listed the six drownings in a daily report, saying that an eight-year-old boy and two young men, aged 18 and 23, died in separate incidents last Friday. "Two men drowned when their canoe capsized in flood waters due to strong winds," the statement said. [...]

The flood waters stem from heavy rains since the end of March in the Angolan catchment area of the Zambezi River, which forms part of Namibia's northern border with Zambia. "I have never seen such a sea of water. These are the worst floods since 1958," Namibia Red Cross Society secretary general Razia Essack-Kauaria earlier said. Namibia, a country the same size as South Africa and with a population of around 1,8 million people, consists mainly of desert and dry savannah and has an average rainfall of around 360mm.

Greenland's icy mountains and the island's entire ice cap could disappear in the next 1,000 years because of global warming, European scientists warn today.

If that occurs sea levels will rise by seven metres, drowning low-level coastlines around the world.

Greenland is covered by the biggest ice sheet in the northern hemisphere: almost 772,000 square miles of ice which is up to 1.9 miles thick, the base of which is below sea level.

But Jonathan Gregory, of the Hadley Centre for climate prediction at the University of Reading, and colleagues from Brussels and Bremerhaven, report in the journal Nature that an average annual warming in the region of 2.7C (37F) would mean that the rate of melting would outpace the annual snowfall.

The greater the warming, the faster the snow melts. The worst-case predictions for Greenland, made by an intergovernmental panel of scientists, involve an average warming of 8C (46F). At those temperatures oceans that have risen by 2.5mm (less than one-tenth of an inch) a year will start to rise by a steady 7mm a year.

There are already signs of consistent melting in Greenland. Researchers reported in 1999 that the ice sheet was thinning by about a metre a year.

The latest research confirms the picture of an increasingly mild polar world. Alaskan glaciers are in retreat. The Arctic Ocean icepack has thinned by more than 30% in the past three decades and has been shrinking by an area equivalent to the Netherlands each year during the same period. If warming continues by the end of the century the Arctic could be free of ice altogether during summer months, British scientists predict.

A dramatic and irreversible rise in sea levels could result from the melting of the Greenland ice sheet if global warming continues unchecked.

Scientists say the melting of the massive ice sheet on Greenland - which has been stable for thousands of years - could increase sea levels by as much as 7 metres (23 feet). Such a rise would inundate vast areas of land, including cities at sea level, such as London. Some densely populated regions, such as Bangladesh, may disappear.

By mid century cities and towns along the American west coast could be suffering serious water shortages in response to climate change. As Arctic sea- ice melts, annual rainfall is forecast to drop by as much as 30 per cent from Seattle to Los Angeles, and inland as far as the Rocky Mountains reports New Scientist.

Driving the change is the prediction that over the next 50 years annual Arctic sea ice could shrink by half in many areas of as much as 50 per cent in some areas during the summer.

[...] In their model Sewall and Cirbus Sloan found that such towers formed between Norway and Greenland, deflecting winter storms that would otherwise have passed over the west coast of the US towards northern British Columbia and southern Alaska.

These areas received 6 per cent more rain, while southern British Columbia down to southern California suffered a 30 per cent drop. The researchers will publish their results in a future issue of Geophysical Research Letters. "Given that water resources in this region are currently stretched close to their limit, a 30 per cent drop would have a serious impact," says Sewall.

Water levels in reservoirs would probably drop, making water rationing a necessity. Meanwhile agriculture would suffer from a lack of water for irrigation and famous national parks, such as Yosemite in California, could change completely as natural ecosystems adapted to a drier climate.

EDMONTON - Anyone planning a river outing this year should plan for a spring getaway instead of a summer one.

Alberta Environment says spring mountain runoff is much below average again this year.

It says, unless there is a lot of rain this spring, rivers will be extremely low by late summer and early fall. Alberta Environment forecasters say there is little to no snow left in the province south of Edmonton and Lloydminster. They say water conservation should begin sooner rather than later, and should not be put off until we have another drought.

LIMA (AFP) - Peruvian authorities helicoptered hundreds of stranded tourists away from the famed Machu Picchu Inca ruins, as rescue teams searched for 10 people missing in avalanches, caused by flash floods that left one confirmed dead.

Peru's civil defense organization said around 500 tourists had been flown out of the area, after mud and rock slides early Saturday hit Aguas Calientes, the town closest to the 600 year old ruins, cutting off tourists.

Around 1,000 tourists were still stranded in the city -- both Peruvians and foreign nationals --where they had headed during the Easter holidays.

Authorities said they expect to be able to transfer them Sunday to Cusco, 150 kilometers (90 miles) away.

Civil defense chief Juan Podesta said rescue teams were searching for the missing.

Around 15 homes were destroyed by Saturday's avalanches which killed one person at Aguas Calientes, which sits below the Inca ruins. [...]

Nearly 10,000 people have been affected by extensive flooding in western Kenya, especially in Nyando District, Western Province, where a river burst its banks and inundated 166 homes, the Kenya Red Cross said on Tuesday.

Two people had drowned, it added. "Thousands of those affected have been displaced from their homes," Tony Mwangi, Kenya Red Cross public relations officer, told IRIN. "The water level in the river is still rising and we expect more flooding in the nearby Budalangi area."

At this time of year, Gerald White is used to selling plant seeds and other garden items, but his customers had something else in mind after an unexpected storm dumped rain, sleet and snow on parts of the South.

The garden center was quiet, but there was plenty of demand for winter items, said White, the manager of a Wal-Mart in Hopkinsville, Ky.

"We don't have any coats left. Some people were looking for snow boots and weatherproof shoe covers. Probably could have sold some heaters if I'd had some," he said Tuesday.

One to 3 inches of snow fell west of Louisville, Ky., while several counties along the Ohio River were hit with sleet. Flooding and mudslides blocked roads and closed schools across West Virginia.

Four people died in traffic accidents on slick roads in Kentucky, including a woman and her two children killed when the van she was driving skidded and collided head-on with a tractor trailer.

In Tennessee, Memphis and Nashville reported a few flurries and some sleet, while more than 4 inches of snow fell in several counties in the western part of the state.

Heavy rain also fell in parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia and New York. [...]

In Beckley, W.Va., a girl was carried to safety by a neighbor after her car was nearly submerged in 4 feet of water, witnesses said. [...]

DHAKA (Reuters) - Ferocious winds tore through parts of northern Bangladesh flattening villages, uprooting trees and killing nearly 50 people, police said on Thursday.

The Wednesday night storm, packing winds of up to 150 kph (90 mph), could have injured more than 2,000, one district official said. Hundreds of people had been treated in hospitals for injuries caused by flying debris, police said.

"The storm left a trail of destruction within minutes," said Imrul Chowdhury, an administrator in Mymensingh, 130 km (80 miles) from Dhaka.

Police said 31 deaths were confirmed in Netrokona and 18 in Mymensingh -- the worst-hit districts.

The Dhaka meteorology office said the storm could be a tornado.

"Given the ferocity and speed, we believe it was a tornado that forms on land suddenly and is impossible to forecast," one official said.

Storms and tornadoes are common in densely populated Bangladesh during the hot season, sometimes killing hundreds of people. The Wednesday tornado was this season's first. [...]

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Millions of locusts are swarming towards Australia's second biggest city of Melbourne and the southern city of Adelaide.

Brought to life in February by drought-breaking rains, billions of locusts first swarmed along a 1,200-km (745-mile) front from southwest Queensland state to the central New South Wales town of Dubbo, across an area twice the size of England.

The move to major cities by the crop-devastating insects widened the battlefront in Australia's three-month effort to contain the swarms. [...]

Climate scientists have been stirred to ridicule claims in an upcoming Hollywood blockbuster that global warming could trigger a new ice age, a scenario also put forward in a controversial report to the US military.

The $125-million epic, The Day After Tomorrow, opens worldwide in May. It will show Manhattan frozen solid after the warm ocean current known as the Gulf Stream shuts down.

The movie's release will come soon after a report to the US Department of Defense (DoD) in February predicting that such a shutdown could put the northern hemisphere into a deep freeze and trigger global famine within 15 years.

But in the journal Science on Thursday, Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, surveys the current research and concludes "it is safe to say that global warming will not lead to the onset of a new ice age".

Salty water

The DoD's doomsday scenario, which is very similar to that in the film, was drawn up by Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall of the San Francisco-based Global Business Network. Neither is a climate scientist.

The scenario suggests that as global warming melts Arctic ice packs, the North Atlantic will become less salty. This would shut down a global ocean circulation system that is driven by dense, salty water falling to the bottom of the north Atlantic and that ultimately produces the Gulf Stream.

This much is respectable scientific theory, and some researchers believe it could happen for real in 100 years or so. But the film-makers and DoD authors go further.

They say it could happen very soon. And that if it did, the northern hemisphere would cool so much that that ice sheets would start to grow, creating a catastrophic new ice age.

This is too much even for sympathetic climatologists. Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, whose own models say the Gulf Stream could shut down within a century, told New Scientist: "The DoD scenario is extreme and highly unlikely."

Achilles heel

And Wallace Broecker of Columbia University, New York, US, who has warned for two decades that the Atlantic circulation is "the Achilles heel of our climate system", seriously questions both the speed and severity of the changes proposed.

In a letter to Science, he accuses the DoD authors of making exaggerated claims that "only intensify the existing polarisation over global warming". He adds: "What is needed is not more words but rather a means to shut down CO2 emissions." Such action could avert any Gulf Stream shutdown in the next 100 years.

Schwartz defends his scenario, saying that while it is "not the most likely scenario, it is plausible, and would challenge US national security in ways that should be considered immediately".

Weaver notes that the movie's budget "would fund my entire research group for my entire life, 10 times over". That might even allow him to discover which scenarios are most plausible.

But there are no sour grapes. "I will be one of the first to see the movie.," he says. "It'll be the Towering Inferno of climate - extremely entertaining." It will not confuse the public, he thinks, but it will not help them understand climate science either.

MOSS LANDING, California -- A remarkable expedition to the waters of Antarctica reveals that iron supply to the Southern Ocean may have controlled Earth's climate during past ice ages. A multi-institutional group of scientists, led by Dr. Kenneth Coale of Moss Landing Marine Laboratories (MLML) and Dr. Ken Johnson of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), fertilized two key areas of the Southern Ocean with trace amounts of iron. Their goal was to observe the growth and fate of microscopic marine plants (phytoplankton) under iron-enriched conditions, which are thought to have occurred in the Southern Ocean during past ice ages. They report the results of these important field experiments (known as SOFeX, for Southern Ocean Iron Enrichment Experiments) in the April 16, 2004 issue of Science.

Previous studies have suggested that during the last four ice ages, the Southern Ocean had large phytoplankton populations and received large amounts of iron-rich dust, possibly blown out to sea from expanding desert areas. In order to simulate such ice-age conditions, the SOFeX scientists added iron to surface waters in two square patches, each 15 kilometers on a side, so that concentrations of this micronutrient reached about 50 parts per trillion. This concentration, though low by terrestrial standards, represented a 100-fold increase over ambient conditions, and triggered massive phytoplankton blooms at both locations. These blooms covered thousands of square kilometers, and were visible in satellite images of the area.

Each of these blooms consumed over 30,000 tons of carbon dioxide, an important greenhouse gas. Of particular interest to the scientists was whether this carbon dioxide would be returned to the atmosphere or would sink into deep waters as the phytoplankton died or were consumed by grazers. Observations by Dr. Ken Buesseler of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Dr. Jim Bishop of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories (reported separately in the same issue of Science) indicate that much of the carbon sank to hundreds of meters below the surface. When extrapolated over large portions of the Southern Ocean, this finding suggests that iron fertilization could cause billions of tons of carbon to be removed from the atmosphere each year. Removal of this much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere could have helped cool the Earth during ice ages.

The sea ice covering much of the Arctic Ocean is melting, a trend that may have dramatic consequences for the western United States. UCSC researchers recently looked at the long-term effects of reduced Arctic sea ice on the global climate, and their most striking finding was a significant reduction in rain and snowfall in the American West.

The study highlights the vulnerability of western states, which depend on winter precipitation for their water supplies, to changes in the regional climate.

The results also show the surprising ways in which a small change in one component of the global climate system can affect particular regions, said Lisa Sloan, professor of Earth sciences.

"We were surprised at the result ourselves, but it shows how interconnected the climate system is. Here we are reducing Arctic sea ice, and the biggest climatic response is felt in an entirely different part of the world," she said. [...]

Nevertheless, the new study serves as a warning that climate change can have small effects in one location that propagate through the system to become big effects somewhere else, Sloan said.

"As the climate changes, the effects will vary a lot from one region to another, and it may be hard to predict where the effects will be felt most. What we saw in this study is not something one would have predicted in advance," she said.

[...] Statistics showed that Beijing's average temperature from April 7 to April 16 reached 18.8 degrees Celsius, 5.2 degrees higher than past years and the highest since 1951, Monday's People's Daily reported.

Zhang Qiang, a noted meteorologist from the National Climate Center said that most parts of North China have seen average temperatures four to six degrees higher than past years.

UTICA, Ill. (AP) - Searchers pulled eight bodies from the rubble of a tornado-flattened Illinois tavern Wednesday, a day after dozens of twisters tore through the U.S. Midwest.

Utica Mayor Fred Esmond said several people from a nearby trailer park fled to the basement of the Milestone Tap bar to seek refuge from the storm.

"They heard it on the radio. Some of them went to the tavern for safety and it just so happened..." Esmond said, his voice trailing off.

Coroner Jody Bernard said the dead, who were found in various locations of the bar, ranged in age from 18 to 81.

The twister cut a wide swath of destruction in the small town about 150 kilometres southwest of Chicago, turning homes and businesses into piles of brick and splintered wood. More than 10 people were taken to hospitals and at least six remained there Wednesday afternoon.

"It was like my brain wasn't comprehending what my eyes were seeing," said John Devore, who rushed his family into the basement and looked outside about 15 seconds later.

"I said: 'Well, it looks like the car's OK' and then a split-second later, 'Wait a minute. I'm not supposed to be able to see my car."

"Where the hell's my garage?"' [...]

BANGKOK, (AFP) - Some 6.5 million people across Thailand are suffering from a serious regional drought that threatens to devastate even more of the kingdom during the dryest time of year, officials say.

The department of disaster prevention and mitigation said 14,887 villages in 59 provinces had been declared serious drought zones, mainly in northern and northeastern areas but also in the popular southern resort island of Phuket.

"The country still faces less rain which is worsening the drought, and the situation is expected to expand and get more serious," according to a statement from the department. [...]

Whitehorse — There is nothing elementary about the mysterious, sudden disappearance of northern pike from Watson Lake in Yukon.

“It's weird,” Aaron Foos of the Yukon Department of the Environment said.

In one year, the community on the British Columbia-Yukon border went from a destination for anglers in search of trophy pike to a lake devoid of the fish.

In the summer of 2002, anglers caught 1,680 of the fish and kept 158.

Based on 2002 catch-and-release figures, Mr. Foos said it would be reasonable to expect there to be more than 20,000 pike in the lake.

For the summer of 2003, however, there is no known record of any pike being caught. Nor did any show up in an intensive search by ministry officials.

Mr. Foos said the rest of the fish in the lake — lake trout, grayling, white fish and burbot — are doing just fine.

Watson Lake conservation officer Ryan Hennings received reports of dead pike on the lake's surface last spring but did not recover any of the reported fish.

WASHINGTON, April 22 (UPI) -- NASA scientists say satellites, acting like thermometers, confirm Earth has had an increasing "fever" for decades.

For the first time, satellites have been used to develop an 18-year record (1981-1998) of global land surface temperatures, providing additional proof Earth's snow-free land surfaces have, on average, warmed during this time period.

That information is highlighted in a NASA study appearing in the March issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. The satellite record of global warming is more detailed and comprehensive than previously available ground measurements.

Menglin Jin, the lead author, is a visiting scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and a researcher with the University of Maryland. Jin said that until now global land surface temperatures used in climate change studies were derived from thousands of on-the-ground World Meteorological Organization stations located around the world.

However, these stations actually measure surface air temperature at two to three meters above land, instead of skin temperatures.

BEIJING (AFP) - A tornado, packing fist-sized hailstones, has whipped through central China, killing seven people, injuring 207 and destroying thousands of homes, state media reported. [...]

The tornado destroyed some 2,430 homes and 1,106 hectares of crops, and the area was left in darkness when power lines were damaged, Xinhua said. [...]

A woman pulls unbroken plates from a kitchen cabinet in the wreckage of her mother's home as she helps with clean up from a deadly tornado Thursday, April 22, 2004 in Utica, Illinois.

WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - Fields in the Canadian Prairie provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan are dry and need rain for crops to grow and survive, an Environment Canada soil moisture model confirmed on Thursday.

A large swatch of southern Alberta and south central Saskatchewan has less than 45 percent of the moisture that soils can hold, said Rick Raddatz, a meteorologist with Environment Canada.

"Once you get down to ... 50 percent, the plant has difficult pulling that moisture away from the soil," Raddatz told Reuters. [...]

Risks of flooding are growing to "unacceptable levels" because of climate change with up to 4 million Britons facing the prospect of their homes being inundated, according to a report to be published today by the government.

The report by the Office of Science and Technology gives the most chilling picture yet of how global warming will affect the lives of millions of Britons over the next half century.

Compiled by 60 experts under the leadership of the government's chief scientist, Sir David King, it shows that many towns in Britain are threatened by rising sea levels, river flooding and the overwhelming of Victorian drains by flash floods.

The report, Future Flooding, looks forward to 2080 but says that the threat is already growing and most of the worst of its predictions will have happened by 2050.

A young brother and sister were swept away in a flash flood Saturday after the pickup truck they were in stalled at a low-water bridge in northwestern Arkansas. The girl's body was recovered, but the boy was still missing after hours of searching.

The truck was caught in flooding that hit many areas of northern Arkansas after days of heavy rain. [...]

TEMECULA, Calif. - A 2,085-acre wildfire sparked by a motor home blaze destroyed two mobile homes and nine vehicles Sunday in southern Riverside County, authorities said.

The blaze also destroyed six outbuildings and threatened about 400 homes as it burned west of the Lake Riverside community, said Lori Hoffmeister, a county fire information spokeswoman. No injuries were reported. [...]

LOS ANGELES - A spring heat wave blistered California with record temperatures Monday as firefighters kept a close eye on dry brush, power officials monitored electricity use, and residents sought refuge at beaches and in swimming pools.

Hundred-degree or greater highs were reported in coastal cities as well as through inland valleys and into the desert. Long Beach topped out only four degrees under Death Valley's 105.

The National Weather Service reported 99 degrees in downtown Los Angeles, shattering the record of 91 set in 1972. Other records included 100 in Santa Maria on the central coast, 91 in San Francisco, which usually averages 65 degrees this time of year, and 93 in San Jose.

Sacramento hit 98, the capital's hottest April 26 since record-keeping began in 1849. [...]

NEW DELHI (AFP) - Northern India was lashed by freak heavy rains and hail, while summer snow fell in parts of Kashmir for the first time in 20 years and 100 tourists had to be rescued from a Himalayan mountain pass.

India's meteorological department said the rare weather phenomenon was caused by a cyclonic air circulation over the Himalayan ranges in Indian Kashmir and neighbouring Himachal Pradesh state. [...]