A youth died when lightning struck him during the heavy rains accompanied by thunder and lightning lashed the village of Subramanya near here on Thursday, February 7.

The deceased person is identified as Praveen (19), son of Krishnappa, a resident of Mithamajalu house,Pallatadka village of the taluk.

Praveen was working as a mason and was presently involved in the renovation of the Aditya Nest Hotel which is near the Kumaradhara Junction of Subramanya village. When the rains started lashing the village at around 6 pm on Thursday, Praveen was covering his two-wheeler with a tarpaulin, when the lightning struck him.

A 'capped inversion' trapped air pollutants near the ground

Despite a steep downward trend in the number of days with poor air quality over the last several years, residents of Washington, D.C., and Baltimore awoke Feb. 4 to thick haze and warnings about unhealthy levels of air pollution. As a result, authorities issued a code-orange alert, urging sensitive groups such as children, the elderly and those with asthma, heart disease or lung disease to limit outdoor activities.

Why would a region used to grappling with air-quality alerts in the muggy days of summer find itself stuck with one in the middle of winter? The cause is a weather phenomenon called a "capped inversion," which under the right conditions prevents ground-based pollutants from drifting away into the upper atmosphere.

Nowhere to go

Normally, air is warmest near the surface and cools as it rises through the atmosphere. In this scenario, air pollutants are emitted and able to mix and spread through this unstable mass of air flowing between warm and cool areas.

A capped inversion occurs when a less dense mass of warm air moves over a dense, cold mass. In the case of the Washington-Baltimore region, a recent cold spell and fresh snowfall on Feb. 1, coupled with the arrival of extremely warm air over the weekend (high temperatures on Feb. 4 reached nearly 65 degrees Fahrenheit, or 18 Celsius), created ideal inversion conditions. As a result, any pollutants emitted during that time stayed close to the ground, elevating the level of particulates in the air and triggering a code-orange alert.

"The fresh snow traps cold air near the surface very well," Joel Dreessen, a meteorologist with Maryland's Department of Environment, said in an email to the Washington Post. "Particles jumped dramatically Saturday (in comparison to Friday) due to the inversion which set up. This very stout near-surface inversion was/is in place through Monday due to ongoing high pressure in the region."

India's capital Delhi was hit by a strong hailstorm on Thursday, turning the city white and leaving people stunned and delighted.

Pictures and videos posted on social media show cherry-sized ice balls and streets covered in white.

Many people compared the unusual sight to scenes from Chicago or London.

Hailstorms "are not rare for Delhi, but their occurrence is infrequent," according to US website Accuweather's senior meteorologist Jason Nicholls.

The severe weather also forced more than 30 flights to be diverted during the early hours of the evening.

However, the hail and rain storm did have an upside. Apart from delighting Delhi's residents, it also helped improve the city's notoriously toxic air quality.

Heavy snowfall Thursday hit Indian-controlled Kashmir, leading to closure of roads and cancellation of flights, officials said.

The snowfall has been going on since Wednesday afternoon.

A government spokesman said some areas in upper reaches received over 20 inches of snow. Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir also recorded 5 inches of snow.

"The upper reaches have been receiving snowfall since yesterday, while as plains were lashed with snow. However, early today the snow began in plains as well and is going on incessantly," an official at Srinagar meteorological department said.

Pakistan's northern and northwestern parts have witnessed record snowfall last month which would help raise the water table in the country, officials said.

"During the last one month the country's northern hilly areas received heavy snowfall -- up to six to seven feet," Abdul Wali Yousafzai, a senior officer in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa irrigation department told Anadolu Agency

This is the heaviest snowfall in 48 years, he added.

According to the met department, the country's northern mountains received heavy snowfall in January and the first week of February.

A sun dog was seen in a sunny field near Graceville, Minnesota yesterday (February 4) when the filmer noticed an upside-down rainbow forming above the solar phenomenon in this breathtaking clip.


The "rainbow" was caused by a circumzenithal arc, where ice crystals in the higher atmosphere refract sunlight depending on the angle of the sun, creating this bright and colorful bow in the sky.

Heavy showers on high altitudes in northern Chile have caused dry river beds to become rushing torrents of water.

The flooding has left one dead, one child missing and over 1,200 homeless, according to officials.

At least 16 people have died in landslides in La Paz Department, Bolivia.

Heavy rain from 02 February caused 2 landslides along the Yolosita-Caranavi highway in Caranavi Province, burying several vehicles. Local authorities said that at least 16 people died and 53 were injured.

Rain in the area has also caused the overflow of the Coroico and Yara rivers. Flooding has been reported in 11 districts of the city of Caranavi, in particular La Costanera and 13 de Diciembre, prompting evacuations.

Schools have been closed in affected areas and a disaster emergency declared by the provincial government.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil's second-largest city, awoke to scenes of chaos on Thursday after thrashing wind and rain whipped through neighbourhoods, felling trees, flooding streets and sweeping away buses in a storm that killed at least five people.

Some of Rio's most iconic neighbourhoods, including tourist hot-spots like Ipanema and Copacabana, were battered by winds of up to 110 kilometres per hour (68 mph) on Wednesday night, with precarious hillside favelas hit by mudslides that closed roads.

At least five people died, with one more person potentially killed in a bus that was hit by a mudslide, Rio's mayor, Marcelo Crivella, told local news media.

"It was a lot of water that ended up causing this tragedy," Crivella said. "It was unexpected."

Heavy rain and melting snow caused rivers to burst their banks and cause flooding across Bosnia, damaging houses and blocking roads. A bridge in the capital, Sarajevo, collapsed after the River Zeljeznica overflowed.

Milder weather has been witnessed following last month's sub-zero conditions. In the space of 24 hours, temperatures jumped from 0C to 15C, causing snow to melt rapidly and trigger floods in central parts of the country.

Zenica and Kakanj, towns in central Bosnia, declared a state of emergency as streets in some neighborhoods were inundated by water and rescue services began evacuating people from their homes on rubber boats.

Schools in the most affected areas of central Bosnia were also forced to stay shut on Monday.