Biologists with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in St. John's are hoping to perform a necropsy on a rarely-seen whale found beached on the shore in Point Lance on Saturday.

A dead Sowerby's beaked whale was discovered on the beach in Point Lance on the Cape Shore.

Crews with DFO went to the site with a trailer to haul the carcass to its offices.

Waves of arctic air will bring the lowest temperatures and the harshest conditions of the winter from late this week through the middle of the month.

The arctic air will be pushed along by a couple of Alberta Clipper storms with rounds of light snow in parts of the Midwest and the potential for a couple of heavy snow events in part of the coastal Northeast.

In perspective, the benchmark low, or the coldest it has been thus far this winter, in New York City was 8 F, on Jan. 8. On that same day, the temperature dipped to minus 2 F in Detroit, minus 1 F in Boston, 11 F at Atlanta and 12 F at Washington, D.C.

Like the frigid air during early January, the waves of arctic air moving in could bring disruptions to some of the trains in the northern cities. The prolonged cold penetrating deep into the ground could also cause water main breaks from the Midwest to the Northeast.

According to AccuWeather Meteorologist Brian Lada, "The combination of frigid air will not only be painful to endure for short periods of time outdoors but can bring life-threatening conditions for those not properly dressed."

The dangers will range from difficulty breathing to frostbite and hypothermia.

The first blast of arctic air will sweep from the Midwest to the Atlantic coast through the end of the week.

During multiple days, temperatures will not climb above zero F in northern Minnesota and part of northern Michigan.

While on the coldest days temperatures will climb into the single digits and teens from Minneapolis to Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh and Boston, AccuWeather RealFeel® Temperatures will be below zero for many hours on multiple days. Actual nighttime low temperatures will dip below zero on occasion.

Residents of Fanø were treated to an usual sight on Wednesday: the partially rotting corpse of a 12-metre sperm whale.

The rotting corpse of a 12-metre-long sperm whale has washed up on the shore of the Danish island Fanø, local police said on Wednesday.

The massive creature was naturally garnering attention, but the Danish Nature Agency (Naturstyrelsen) warned that curious onlookers should stay away from the whale, which it characterized as "a bacteria bomb".

"Experience from previous whale strandings shows that many people want to go up and touch the dead whale, but it can be deadly as dead whales are often indicted with pathogenic bacteria," the Nature Agency wrote on its website.

A raging sandstorm has swept into Israel, Palestine and Lebanon causing the worst Israeli air pollution in years and whipping up huge waves in the Mediterranean Sea.

The storm, make up of accumulated dust carried from the far reaches of the Sahara Desert in North Africa, also engulfed Cairo for a second day.

Israel's Environmental Protection Ministry said air pollution levels were the country's worst in five years and the storm would last into tonight.

Israeli airports spokeswoman Liza Dvir said flights to and from the Red Sea resort city of Eilat were temporarily grounded due to the weather, though planes still flew through the country's main international hub, Ben Gurion Airport outside of Tel Aviv.

A magnitude 6.9 earthquake struck northeastern Chile on Wednesday, very close to the border with Argentina, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The quake, initially reported as a major 7.0, was fairly deep at 157 miles (252 km) below the earth, which should lessen its impact.

Its epicenter was located 111 miles (178 km) northwest of the Argentine town of Jujuy.

The 2015 Jakarta floods continue as more heavy rain falls on the Indonesian capital. The National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) of Indonesia confirmed earlier today that 5,986 people have been forced to evacuate their homes after floods continued to inundate wide areas of the city.

Update: Australian news agency AAP are reporting that Jakarta police say that one person has died after being swept away by flood water in central Jakarta.

The heavy rain began on Sunday 08 February 2015. By Monday, west, north, central areas, including the President's palace, were all under water. Traffic, trains and buses were all brought to a standstill, with many streets under water between 30 and 80 cm deep.

Heavy rain in Peru over the last 3 days has caused landslides and flooding in 3 regions of the country according to Peru's National Civil Defense Institute, INDECI.

Arequipa

A storm and heavy rainfall on 09 February affected at least 20 homes and inundated roads in the districts of Sachaca and Cerro Colorado in the province of Arequipa.

San Martin

Areas of San Martin were affected by flooding earlier this year, displacing at least 3,000 people .

B.C.'s Haisla First Nation ordered the evacuation of Kitamaat Village and its 800 residents on Saturday night, three days after the community lost power following a major snowstorm.

Many residents are staying at the Kitimat Riverlodge Leisure Centre, about 15 kilometres north in the town of Kitimat.

Others are staying with family and friends.

The small towns of Kitimat and Terrace were hit with heavy snow earlier this week - nearly two metres of snow from a Pineapple Express weather system was dumped on the region.

The record for a 24-hour snowfall, set on Feb. 5, 1961, was 112 cm. Weather officials say Kitimat came close with 109 cm of snow in a 24-hour period.

This is the scary moment a huge cobra left drivers in Brazil in no doubt about who rules this certain section of road on the Sao Paulo highway.

The angry reptile can be seen striking out at vehicles as they pass by - and it seems he holds particular contempt for large lorries.

Oblivious to the small issue of their size, the snake repeatedly strikes at the tyres of the trucks as they tentatively roll past.

Police went door to door to get 250 residents out of Swall Meadows this weekend before a massive wind-driven wildfire swept through the town and destroyed 40 homes and other buildings along the Sierra mountains.

Ira Hanson milled around an evacuation center near tiny Swall Meadows on Sunday afternoon, not quite sure what to do after learning that the dream home he and his late wife had built 30 years earlier was damaged in a wildfire that consumed 40 homes and buildings.

Sheriff's deputies had banged on the door and urged him to get out less than 48 hours earlier, and he'd fled the house with little more than his medications and a pillow. Officials later told him that fire crews had to knock down one of the home's walls in an effort to save another house next door, but he had yet to see the damage.

"It's unbelievable," said Hanson, 79. "It's like having a nightmare and you're going to wake up any minute and it won't be true."

Fire crews increased containment of the wind-driven wildfire that ravaged communities along the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada, but they said Sunday that they still didn't know when the roughly 250 residents evacuated from Swall Meadows and nearby Paradise would be able to return home.