High winds sweeping across Colorado's Front Range forced the diversion of 17 flights scheduled to land at the Denver International Airport.

DIA spokeswoman Laura Coale says 11 flights were diverted to Colorado Springs Airport, five went to Cheyenne Regional Airport and one was sent to Fort Collins-Loveland Airport between about 9:40 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. Friday. She didn't know how many airlines were involved.

Coale says at one point, incoming flights were delayed by more than an hour and a half, while departing flights were delayed between half an hour and an hour.

National Weather Service meteorologist Todd Dankers says the peak wind gust between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. was 34 mph.

Winds shifted late Friday morning, allowing air traffic controllers to use more runways at DIA.

In Alaska, scores of volcanoes and strange lava flows have escaped scrutiny for decades, shrouded by lush forests and hidden under bobbing coastlines.

In the past three years, 12 new volcanoes have been discovered in Southeast Alaska, and 25 known volcanic vents and lava flows re-evaluated, thanks to dogged work by geologists with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Forest Service. Sprinkled across hundreds of islands and fjords, most of the volcanic piles are tiny cones compared to the super-duper stratovolcanoes that parade off to the west, in the Aleutian Range.

But the Southeast's volcanoes are in a class by themselves, the researchers found. A chemical signature in the lava flows links them to a massive volcanic field in Canada. Unusual patterns in the lava also point to eruptions under, over and alongside glaciers, which could help scientists pinpoint the size of Alaska's mountain glaciers during past climate swings.

"It's giving us this serendipitous window on the history of climate in Southeast Alaska for the last 1 million years," said Susan Karl, a research geologist with the USGS in Anchorage and the project's leader.

Another round of dangerous weather, spawning baseball-sized hail and tornadoes, was predicted for Oklahoma and parts of the Ozarks on Friday, a day after more than a dozen reported twisters ripped through the region, U.S. forecasters said.

Storms in Oklahoma and Arkansas left an Arkansas county sheriff dead and at least one man missing in an attempted water rescue and at least five other people injured elsewhere, officials said.

"The atmosphere will become extremely unstable this afternoon, especially in Oklahoma, while winds in the atmosphere will be favorable for organized severe storms, including a few supercell thunderstorms," the National Weather Service said in an advisory.

The body of Scott County Sheriff Cody Carpenter was recovered early Friday, said Keith Stephens, a spokesman for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. Authorities continued to search for another person missing after Thursday night's rescue attempt along the Fourche La Fave River.

Another man died in Tull when a tree fell on his car during a possible tornado, said Pete Roberts, Grant County sheriff's office chief deputy.

Arkansas had numerous reports of damage from high winds, heavy rain and possible tornadoes. Entergy Arkansas reported more than 30,000 customers without power.

Thunderstorms with torrential rains moved across the Kansas City area early Friday morning causing life-threatening flash flooding.

Emergency crews, especially in the southern part of the metropolitan area, responded to numerous reports of drivers stuck in high water after they drove into water-covered roads.

The drivers became stranded by the fast rising and swift moving waters.

The National Weather Service in Pleasant Hill, Mo., continued a flash flood warning for most of the Kansas City area until 11 a.m. Friday.

The warning is in effect for Johnson, northern Miami and southern Leavenworth County in Kansas and southwestern Lafayette, northwestern Johnson, southern Jackson and northern Cass counties in Missouri.

The National Weather Service said radar indicated at 6 a.m. Friday that thunderstorms with torrential rainfall was moving across the southern Kansas City metropolitan area.

Scotland - There's something fishy about a sea creature that washed up on a Tayside beach.

Locals were left scratching their heads after the fearsome looking remains of the dead animal were found by a passing local on Easthaven beach.

Measuring between four and five feet long, the creatures's jaw is also filled with a set of sharp teeth.

Dozens of people have speculated online about what the mystery sea creature could be.

Some have suggested it could be a Conger Eel that has washed up, whereas others believe it could be a ling.

But some locals have pointed out that the grisly remains could be a shark or a pike.

More amusing suggestions even say it could be a dinosaur or the Loch Ness monster.

In a week that has produced hundreds of reports of severe weather and over 60 reports of tornadoes, the threat for more damaging storms continues into Thursday night across the Plains and the Midwest.

Update at 4:15 p.m. CDT Thursday: Severe storms are erupting from Wisconsin and Michigan to Oklahoma and Arkansas. Several tornadoes with damage and injuries have been reported in Arkansas. Tornado reports have also come out of Oklahoma. Follow the latest information in our live blog.

The threat of severe storms extends over a large area from North Texas northward into Wisconsin and Minnesota, including Minneapolis, Des Moines, Omaha, Wichita and Oklahoma City. The greatest threat for tornadoes will extend from northern Missouri southwestward into northeastern Oklahoma, including Kansas City, Springfield, Mo., and Tulsa, Okla.

The risk of strong to severe storms has expanded rapidly eastward late Thursday and includes Milwaukee, Chicago, St. Louis and Little Rock.

President Obama issued this threat to the American people in his 2013 State of the Union Address (SOTU): "But for the sake of our children and our future, we must do more to combat climate change....Now, the good news is, we can make meaningful progress on this issue while driving strong economic growth....But if Congress doesn't act soon to protect future generations, I will."

President Obama talks as if only he was reelected in 2012. He fails to recall that the entire House of Representatives was on the ballot with him. And the American people elected a majority of Republicans to the House, not to be a rubber stamp on anything Obama wants, but as a check on Obama excesses, which is what they serve as.

Obama cited as support for his threatened global warming regulatory jihad, "Yes, it's true that no single event makes a trend. But the fact is, the 12 hottest years on record have all come in the last 15." The fact is also, however, that years of decline from a peak in global temperatures, as occurred in 1998 due to the entirely natural El Nino effect that year, can also be among the warmest on record. (That global temperature record he is talking about only goes back about 125 years, most of which has been reflecting recovery of global temperatures from the "Little Ice Age" occurring roughly from 1350 to 1850.).

A tornado struck in northeastern Milan, Italy, on Wednesday, and you don't need a translator to understand the reactions of those who captured the amateur footage posted above, while riding in a vehicle alongside the twister.

The dramatic mobile phone footage shows the funnel of the tornado tearing through an industrial area in Cavenago, around 27km from Milan on Wednesday morning

The video shot from the nearby A4 highway shows the swirling mass of air filling with debris.

"It's destroying all the roofs," a man off camera says.

"No it's not possible... this is really crazy... I've never seen anything like this."

The Institute of Vulcanology warned that the eruption could intensify with ash rising as high as 1000 to 2000 metres, posing a threat to air traffic at Guatemala's international airport.

"Ash could spread over Guatemala City due to the direction of the wind," the country's disaster response office said in a statement.

The last major eruption of Pacaya, in May 2010, claimed the life of a television journalist, drove thousands of people from their homes and forced the closure of the Guatemala City airport for five days.

The 2552 metre-high Pacaya is 50 kilometres south of the capital and one of three active volcanoes in Guatemala.

Around 1250 A.D., historical records show, ice packs began showing up farther south in the North Atlantic. Glaciers also began expanding on Greenland, soon to threaten Norse settlements on the island. From 1275 to 1300 A.D., glaciers began expanding more broadly, according to radiocarbon dating of plants killed by the glacier growth. The period known today as the Little Ice Age was just starting to poke through.

Summers began cooling in Northern Europe after 1300 A.D., negatively impacting growing seasons, as reflected in the Great Famine of 1315 to 1317. Expanding glaciers and ice cover spreading across Greenland began driving the Norse settlers out. The last, surviving, written records of the Norse Greenland settlements, which had persisted for centuries, concern a marriage in 1408 A.D. in the church of Hvalsey, today the best preserved Norse ruin.

Colder winters began regularly freezing rivers and canals in Great Britain, the Netherlands and Northern France, with both the Thames in London and the Seine in Paris frozen solid annually. The first River Thames Frost Fair was held in 1607. In 1607-1608, early European settlers in North America reported ice persisting on Lake Superior until June. In January, 1658, a Swedish army marched across the ice to invade Copenhagen. By the end of the 17th century, famines had spread from northern France, across Norway and Sweden, to Finland and Estonia.

Reflecting its global scope, evidence of the Little Ice Age appears in the Southern Hemisphere as well. Sediment cores from Lake Malawi in southern Africa show colder weather from 1570 to 1820. A 3,000 year temperature reconstruction based on varying rates of stalagmite growth in a cave in South Africa also indicates a colder period from 1500 to 1800. A 1997 study comparing West Antarctic ice cores with the results of the Greenland Ice Sheet Project Two (GISP2) indicate a global Little Ice Age affecting the two ice sheets in tandem.