Nicaragua's Telica volcano is sending a huge plume of gas and ash spewing into the sky.

Venezuela President Hugo Chavez has extended for 90 days in seven states and parts of Caracas a state of emergency called in response to violent rainfalls in late 2010 that may return this year.

The states included in the decree are Vargas, Miranda, Zulia, Falcon, Merida, Trujillo and Nueva Esparta, state media reported late Tuesday. Officials last ordered the state of emergency to be prolonged in February, according to the release.

After an extremely dry winter, spring storms are bringing abundant moisture to metro Denver.

Severe weather erupted by early afternoon along the urban corridor, as funnel clouds were spotted in Adams and Broomfield counties, prompting two Tornado Warnings.

A storm system slowly meandering from the central Rockies into the Plains could bring heavy rain to parts of Nebraska on Thursday, with rain chances continuing into next week.

AccuWeather said cool air arriving on the southern Plains with this system will clash with warmer, moist air flowing in from the Gulf of Mexico, setting the stage for hit-and-miss storms with heavy rain, large hail and wind gusts past 40 mph.

Some isolated tornadoes cannot be ruled out from the strongest of storms, forecasters said.

A mudslide caused the side of a hill to drop 25 feet Wednesday morning. Homeowner Bettie Keith said she heard the sounds of the trees and telephone poles falling. For months, Keith said the ground has been slowly cracking and she has been talking with Cabell Huntington Hospital representatives.

Extreme weather events, such as the heavy rains that recently flooded the Mississippi River and the tornadoes that ripped through an unprecendented 300 mile swath in Alabama, are extremely likely to occur more frequently in the future.

This is prompting local governments to prepare for the impact of climate change, according to scientists and adaptation experts participating in a telephone press conference held yesterday by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

Date-Time:
Thursday, May 19, 2011 at 20:15:23 UTC

Thursday, May 19, 2011 at 11:15:23 PM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
39.115°N, 29.124°E

Depth:
4.6 km (2.9 miles) (poorly constrained)

Region:
WESTERN TURKEY

Distances:
53 km (32 miles) NNW of Usak, Turkey

82 km (50 miles) WSW of Kutahya, Turkey

120 km (74 miles) S of Bursa, Turkey

332 km (206 miles) WSW of ANKARA, Turkey

From California to England to India, people have periodically reported a fishy form of precipitation: small animals, such as fish, frogs, and snakes have occasionally fallen unexpectedly from the sky, sometimes miles away from water. Waterspouts whirling over lakes or oceans can suck water and whatever is in it up into the clouds above them. The strong winds of these storm clouds can carry their flopping cargo long distances before dumping them on unsuspecting people below.

For centuries, people have reported an electrical oddity invading their homes, usually during thunderstorms. Balls of light, ranging from the size of a golfball to a football, occasionally float through the air during storms, undoubtedly surprising anyone they happen to encounter. Known as ball lightning, they have no smell and emit no heat and little sound. They generally disappear with a ?pop? when they encounter something electrical, like a television, though they occasionally explode more violently, sometimes starting fires. These glowing spheres not only mystify those who happen to encounter them, but scientists as well?as yet, there is no prevailing explanation for how ball lightning forms.

Showers of blood falling from the sky may sound like something out of a Hollywood horror film, but such scarlet-tinted rains have been reported since ancient Roman times. Though they often horrified the people they fell upon, these rains were not actually blood?they were caused by dust or sand blown into the atmosphere and carried long distances by strong winds, eventually mixing with rain clouds and coloring the rain. In Europe, these red rains are usually dyed by dust carried across the continent from Saharan sand storms. (Other colored rains have also been spotted and seem to be caused by similar sources: pollens can create a startling yellow rain, dust from coal mines and ominous black rain, and some dusts a milky white rain.)

Start preparing now: This year's hurricane season is expected to be an active one.

On the heels of an already violent tornado season and other wild April weather, the 2011 hurricane season may see 12 to 18 named storms and six to 10 hurricanes, an above-average season.

That's the forecast from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), released today (May 19) for the Atlantic basin, which includes the East Coast, the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. If the forecast is anything like last year's, it should be taken very seriously.

"If you live along the Gulf Coast or live along the Atlantic Coast, you've had your notice," said Craig Fugate, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). "It's going to be an above-average season."

The 2010 season was one of the busiest ever, with 12 hurricanes in the Atlantic - the second-highest number on record, tied with 1969 - and 19 named storms (which include tropical storms and hurricanes) - a tie with 1887 and 1995 as the third-busiest on record. The 2010 forecast called for 17 named storms and 10 hurricanes.

An average Atlantic season produces 11 named storms, six hurricanes and two major hurricanes. The busiest season on record remains 2005, which saw 28 named storms, including Hurricane Katrina. Five of last year's hurricanes reached major hurricane status (Category 3 or higher on the Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane strength).

A projected wave of extinctions of plant and animal species this century may have been overestimated because the most widely used scientific method can exaggerate losses by more than 160 percent, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

The scientists said that habitat destruction by humans is driving animal and plant species toward extinction at just half the pace as previously believed.

They attribute the overestimation to flaws in the most popular scientific method, which exaggerated the projected losses by more than 160 percent.