Winter in the northern hemisphere officially ended in March, and yet May 2015 saw heavy snowfalls in parts of Norway, Russia, China and the US. Europe recorded its highest ever (official) May and June temperature - 44°C in Spain - during a brief heatwave, before the mercury plunged to as low as 8°C the following week. Like much of Siberia, northern China went from warm, dry weather - including sandstorms and wildfires - in April, to blizzards by the end of May, while spring snowfall and cold temperature records were broken in Russia.

There were at least four major tornado outbreaks in the US last month, generating some 460 tornado reports. Will the US break its 2011 record for highest number of tornadoes in one year? With the storms came hail, rain, and snow - lots of it. Texas was inundated with record-breaking rainfall that bought its 3-year-long drought to a chaotic end. There were also destructive tornadoes in New Zealand, Mexico, and Germany, which saw two tornado outbreaks.

California's record-breaking drought continues, but Los Angeles saw its daily rainfall record smashed in May. Other parts of the US under water were Louisiana, Oklahoma and Alaska, which saw its 'worst flooding in decades', in part due to yet another bizarre spring heatwave. An 'apocalyptic' storm in Moscow flooded streets, while hailstorms turned streets into rivers of ice in Spain, Mexico, and Turkey, where cars were washed away in the coastal city of Izmir. Several huge sinkholes opened up - in the US, Turkey, the Canary Islands and Russia - swallowing gardens, street intersections, golf greens, and cars.

Another deadly earthquake - officially considered an aftershock - rocked Nepal on May 12th, just three weeks after the country was flattened by its worst seismic event in 80 years. Wolf Volcano in the Galapagos erupted for the first time in decades, followed a couple of days later by an explosive eruption of Mount Shindake in southern Japan. Next up was a magnitude 8.5 earthquake off the Japanese coast, the country's strongest since that magnitude 9.0 earthquake in March 2011.

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A lengthy hailstorm caused a mess in a Denver neighborhood overnight.

The neighborhood in the area of South Irving Street and West Alaska Place had several feet of hail piled up on the roads and sidewalks early Friday morning after daybreak.

It caused a lot of work for residents like Sinforoso Sanchez. They had to use snow shovels to get their cars out.

"It was ridiculous," he said. "It was like a rushing river of hail coming through here. I mean, vehicles sideways being pushed away from the curb and everybody in the neighborhood was helping everybody else try to get people out of cars.

Flash floods caused by torrential rains in southwest Pakistan killed at least 16 people including 14 women, officials said yesterday.

The floodwaters swept away many people in two remote villages of Khuzdar district in Baluchistan, around 370 kilometres (230 miles) south of the provincial capital Quetta.

"The torrential rains in the hilly areas created flash floods which swept away some gypsy people sleeping in makeshift tents in the dried water channel," Akbar Harifal, a senior administration official in the region, told AFP.

"Some people saved themselves but could not rescue their family members because the floodwaters came suddenly," he said.

Nuclear-armed but economically underdeveloped Pakistan regularly battles natural calamities such as floods.

A 48-year-old woman was forced to kill her own dog after it attacked her as it was fighting with another dog.

According to the East Baton Rouge Animal Shelter, the incident happened Thursday at a home located on Confederate Avenue, which is located near Tiger Bend. It happened shortly before 5 p.m.

"The woman owned two pit bulls," said Hilton Cole, Director for the EBR Shelter. "The two dogs began fighting each other and she had to defend herself from her own dog when she tried to break up the fight."

Cole says the woman stabbed the dog after it latched on to her left arm. The woman was transported to the hospital by EMS for treatment of her injury."

"It was self-defense," Cole said. "Unfortunately, we see cases like this where a dog just explodes and loses control of its self and attacks its owner.

"We always emphasis that dogs are predators and even though they've been domesticated, you have to be careful around them," Cole added, "especially the bigger, stronger breeds."

The dog that attacked the woman was dead when officers arrived. The second dog was seized by the shelter with the permission of the owner.

Both dogs were males.

Panic gripped Pandari Nomhala village, under Hafizganj police station, on Friday when a wild boar entered into the house of a local farmer and injured six people. Four people, who were severely injured, have been admitted to a private hospital. While the animal was chased away by the villagers, forest department has ordered an inquiry into the incident.

On Friday, the boar entered into the house of Janki Prasad, a local farmer, in Pandari Nomhala village. When Prasad tried to scare the animal away with a bamboo stick, it pounced on the farmer and ate his leg.

When his son Manoj intervened, the animal injured him too.

A 17-year-old had a frightening encounter with a bear in Western Massachusetts over the weekend.

Carly Hall came face-to-face with a black bear on Tracey Circle in Amherst Saturday night.

"It was really scary," she said. "We were in the wrong place at the wrong time."

The Belchertown teenager was walking a dog with her friends when the dog started barking frantically. That's when the group spotted something in a neighbor's yard.

"And then we realized it was a bear," Hall said. "We started to back up slowly."

The bear chased after Hall and the dog, getting close enough to leave scratches on her back. She managed to get on to the roof of a parked car, and the bear continued after the dog.

"I was just trying to get away from it," Hall said. "I think I was actually pretty lucky because it wasn't a bad scratch at all."

A black bear attacked a 55-year-old man Monday afternoon in the Lincoln National Forest east of Capitan, the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish said Tuesday.

The man was searching for antler sheds in thick brush when he surprised the bear, which then charged at him. The man received deep scratches to his chest and a bite to a leg before the bear ran off into the woods, the Department of Game and Fish said in a news release.

The injured man used a two-way radio to call his search partner, officials said. The two walked to their vehicle and drove to the Lincoln County Medical Center in Ruidoso. The man was treated at the hospital and released.

The attack occurred near the Baca Campground off Forest Service Road 57, officials said. On Tuesday, Game and Fish officers were looking for the bear so it can be tested for rabies.

• A photographer captured the rare phenomenon in the skies above Newcastle, Country Durham and Northumberland
• It is caused by tiny ice crystals that form clouds in the mesopause and scatter the twilight from the summer sun
• Noctilucent clouds are normally only visible in the weeks around summer solstice in more northerly latitudes

Rare clouds high in the Earth's atmosphere turned the night's sky a vivid blue yesterday as summer sunlight was scattered by tiny ice crystals.

Pictures captured in northern England show the midnight skies illuminated with an electric blue colour.

The phenomenon was caused by rare noctilucent clouds - extremely small ice crystals that form in the mesopause - that sit more than 47 miles (75km) above the Earth's surface.

These clouds, which are the highest in the Earth's atmosphere, scatter the sunlight as it dips low in the sky, creating an eerie glow.

They usually occur in the weeks around the summer solstice when sunlight dips just below the horizon to illuminate the clouds.

Parts of Europe are sizzling on Friday as an early-season heat wave sweeps across the continent. The heat is not particularly intense or dangerous, but it's pretty early the season for temperatures of this magnitude in northern Europe. Late-afternoon highs were surging into the low 90s, particularly in the Rhine River Valley in southwest Germany and eastern France.

Temperatures are steaming at as much as 25 degrees Fahrenheit above average for this time of year. Accuweather's Eric Leister says that some cities, including Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt, are seeing their hottest temperatures of the year thus far. The heat and humidity was fueling a line of showers and thunderstorms that's tracking east across northern Europe, with potential to impact the French Open on Friday evening.

The heat wave has likely reached its peak on Friday afternoon, though above-average temperatures will continue to spread south across Europe on Saturday into Sunday, but will regulate to highs closer to normal by early next week. Reuters reports that while the heat is making the tourists sweat in Paris, they don't necessarily mind the brilliant blue sky.

Temperatures hit 50C in United Arab Emirates as heat spreads across the Middle East

The highest daytime temperature in the world on Wednesday was recorded at Sweihan, Abu Dhabi, where the temperature climbed to 50.5C at 12pm local time.

The UAE has recently been enduring a heat wave, which started many thousands of kilometres away.

A week ago, while India was suffering an official heat wave, it was hotter still in the middle of Pakistan. In the Indus Valley, temperatures were daily at 48C and 49C.

Nawabshah, north of Hyderabad, registered at least 49C for four days in a row. May 24 saw the highest temperature of Pakistan's heat wave: 49.5C in Nawabshah.

This heat did not just go away, it has been blown gently south, through the Indus delta, over Gwadar, into the Arabian Sea. Indeed, as June came in, Gwadar's temperature shot up ten degrees to 48C for two days in a row.

This hot air, loaded with dust which is visible by satellite, has now reached Oman and the United Arab Emirates. Temperatures here have risen three to five degrees since the start of June.

On Wednesday, Khasab, Sunayah and Fahud, all in Oman, each measured 49C. This looks like a record-equalling high for Khasab, on the Musandam peninsula. This region is known as Oman's 'Norway of Arabia', with its fjord-like inlets and cliffs overlooking the Strait of Hormuz.

The UAE's heat wave also affected Ras al-Khaimah, recording two successive days at 47C, while Sharjah notched up 46C and the city of Dubai 45C.