Mother Nature flexed her muscle Thursday when a lightning strike took down a tree outside Wautoma High School.

Principal Jennifer Johnson says it happened at about 8:25 a.m. while 9th and 10th grade students were preparing to take the ACT Aspire test.

No one was hurt and there was no damage to the school.

"Initially, the students and staff were startled by the event; however, after realizing what had just happened, they were fascinated by the rare incident that occurred just feet from them," said Johnson.

An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.1 jolted 168 km SSW of Sarangani, Philippines at 09:30:44 GMT on Saturday, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The epicenter, with a depth of 311.31 km, was initially determined to be at 4.1069 degrees north latitude and 124.6681 degrees east longitude.

National Emergency Management Organisation warned residents to leave and said ash plume had reached 20,000ft

The Caribbean island of St Vincent has been rocked by an explosive eruption of La Soufrière volcano, which spewed clouds of ash miles into the air a day and forced thousands to flee for safety.

The country's National Emergency Management Organisation (Nemo) confirmed on Twitter that the 4,049-foot volcano had erupted on Friday morning and warned residents to leave the surrounding areas.

Pictures shared on social media showed towering plumes of gas and volcanic matter billowing into the sky above the volcano, and heavy ash fall was reported in the surrounding areas.

"The majesty that is La Soufrière is awake in all her terrifying glory," tweeted Heidi Badenock, a lawyer on the island.

At least four gray whales have been found dead in the Bay Area in just over a week, The Marine Mammal Center said Thursday.

The first one washed up last Wednesday at Crissy Field in San Francisco, the center said. The second one washed up Saturday at Fitzgerald Marine Reserve in San Mateo County. A third one was found this week floating in the San Francisco Bay.

The fourth whale washed ashore at Muir Beach in Marin County, the center said Thursday.

Scientists from the mammal center were unable to determine a cause of death for the whale found at Crissy Field. They are still investigating the deaths of the other three whales.

If you thought winter was over in Anchorage, the National Weather Service has some bad news for you.

Unseasonably cold air swept into Alaska's largest city Thursday, and forecasters expect it to stay through the weekend.

The weather service is warning of wind chills as low as minus 25 degrees. There are also high wind warnings in effect for the Whittier and Seward areas.

The cold is plunging south into Alaska all the way from the North Pole, pushing a band of snow through Southcentral, said weather service meteorologist Ben Bartos.

"And with that, we'll have some very strong winds barreling through the area," Bartos said. "It's going to hit us like a freight train, if you will."

The snow is expected to taper off midday Thursday, Bartos said, with northerly winds picking up to 30 mph and gusting to as high as 50 mph. Winds are forecasted to die down Friday, with the possibility of record low temperatures to follow in Anchorage.

Sudden drops in temperature, heavy Spring snow, and erratic weather continued to hit the northern hemisphere well into March, while the southern hemisphere suffered from heavy rain, floods, and landslides, disrupting the lives of millions and affecting crops on a massive scale.

As temperatures continue to drop and sea ice continues to grow exponentially at both poles, Antarctica set its coldest March temperature on record: -75.3°C (-103.5°F).

But things are also "heating up", a dramatic increase in both the number of active volcanoes and recorded eruptions has been reported during March, not very good news for an already super-cold upper atmosphere.

From historic bush fires to 'once-in-a-century floods, Australia suffered one of its worst downpours after weather systems converged over Queensland and New South Wales, dumping more than 20 inches of rain in one day north of Brisbane, and nearly 40 inches in a week in New South Wales. Tens of thousands were displaced.

And talking about extreme weather, Taiwan experienced the worst drought in half a century after being hit by record floods during the pasts months.

Sudden downpours also wreaked havoc in parts of Latin America affecting thousands of families. In western Colombia, 60% of normal March rain fell in just 90 minutes, while a month's worth of rain fell in 2 hours in Grande Do Sul, Brazil.

As another example of things charging up in the Earth's upper atmosphere, the first 'space hurricane' with a 1,000 km-wide swirling mass of plasma was revealed by a team led by Shandong University in China, after an analysis of satellite data from August 2014. Formed hundreds of kilometers above the North Pole, these 'hurricanes' in many ways resemble the hurricanes formed in the Earth's lower atmosphere, but in this case, it causes a rain of electrons instead of water. Scientists assume that it must be created by an unusually large and rapid transfer of solar wind energy and charged particles (from different sources out in space) into the Earth's upper atmosphere.

Keep your eyes on the sky folks, as meteor fireballs are delivering an increasingly stunning and alarming show in recent years.

All this and more in our SOTT Earth Changes Summary for March 2021:

A large dust storm fills the sky in Hafar al-Batin, Saudi Arabia. April 8th 2021.

A Caribbean island has issued a red alert and ordered an evacuation after warnings of an 'imminent' volcanic eruption.

Residents of St Vincent have been told to leave their homes due to the 'significant increase in the risk of an eruption.'

The government said on Thursday that the danger centres on the La Soufriere volcano in the northern region of the island.

Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, said people living in so-called red zones in the northwest and northeast of the island needed to leave immediately as the volcano pumped out more smoke and steam.

"There is now in the country an evacuation order," he said in a message broadcast on social media.

St. Vincent's National Emergency Management Organisation (NEMO) said on Twitter there was now a "substantial prospect of disaster" due to the pick-up in La Soufriere's seismic activity.

French winemakers have lit candles and burned bales of hay to try to protect their vineyards from sharp spring frosts, with the forecast of more cold nights this week raising fears of serious damage and lost production.

Temperatures plunged as low as -5 degrees Celsius overnight in wine regions including Chablis, in Burgundy, and Bordeaux, which could hurt shoots already well-developed because of earlier mild weather.

Outside Chablis, known around the world for its fruity, acidic white wine, a deep orange glow from tens of thousands of candles hung over the rolling vineyards in the early hours.

Winemaker Laurent Pinson said he had put between 300 and 600 large candles — burning cans of paraffin — across many of his 14 hectares of vines.

"The harvest is at stake over a few nights — one, two or three nights — and if we have no harvest, that means no sales, no wine for consumers," Mr Pinson said.

A Sydney woman could hardly believe her eyes when she spotted a spinning column moving across the sea.

Kasia Kapusta, 43, spotted the so-called waterspout off the coast at Maroubra Beach on Tuesday morning.

"It looked incredible," she said.

"I've been living in Maroubra for five years and I've never seen anything like it."

Waterspouts are a form of wind vortexes that form over water, scooping up the liquid and dragging it towards the sky.