Intense cold wave conditions continued in Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh on Sunday even as the most parts of the region were engulfed under a blanket of fog that reduced visibility and affected movement of road and rail traffic.
The minimum temperature hovered between two to four degrees below normal in most parts of the region, the MET office said.
The cold wave conditions had so far claimed three lives - two in Punjab and one in Haryana - in the region.
With a temperature of four degrees below normal, Srinagar continued to be coldest in the hills with a low of minus 5.6 degrees celsius whereas Jalandhar with a low of 0.4 degree celsius was coldest in the plains.
Chandigarh settled at a low of 3.8 degree celsius, three degrees below normal. [...]
The cold spell that gripped the nation over the weekend continued to dump heavy snow in mountainous regions Monday and brought Nagoya its heaviest fall in 58 years, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
A minor earthquake occurred at 00:52:20 (UTC) on Tuesday, December 20, 2005. The magnitude 3.0 event has been located in LOUISIANA. (This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.)
Britain has seen its biggest and brightest Moon for 18 years, after its orbit brought it closer to Earth.
Dr Jim O'Donnell, of the Royal Greenwich Observatory, said it was also "higher in the sky than usual".
It may be the latest evidence of global warming: Polar bears are drowning.
Scientists for the first time have documented multiple deaths of polar bears off Alaska, where they likely drowned after swimming long distances in the ocean amid the melting of the Arctic ice shelf. The bears spend most of their time hunting and raising their young on ice floes.
Comment: Comment: "It may be the latest evidence of global warming"?? How much more evidence do they need?
The world is now hotter than at any stage since prehistoric times, a top climatologist announced last week. His startling conclusion comes as Nasa reported that 2005 has been the hottest year ever recorded.
Dr Michael Coughlan, head of the National Climate Centre at the Australian Government's Bureau of Meteorology, said: "One probably has to go back into prehistoric times - and way back in them - to be seeing these sorts of temperatures."
Top British climatologists agree privately but are cautious of saying so in public because, naturally, no measurements were taken of temperatures then.
Dr Coughlan is supported by research that shows carbon dioxide levels in the air - the main cause of global warming - are higher now than at any time in the past hundreds of thousands of years.
Robert Watson, one of the world's leading climate scientists, has been ousted from his job as chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This followed the withdrawal of support by the US government, apparently at the behest of the oil company ExxonMobil, which had lobbied against him.
Comment: Comment: A lot has happened since Robert Watson was kicked out because Bush and Co didn't like him and didn't like hearing about Global Climate Change. If we examine the records, we find that a lot of scientists have been kicked out, silenced, and even killed since Bush came to power. In short, the Bush Gang has been quietly and steadily getting rid of anybody who could help us solve the problems humanity faces today.
An ambitious Japanese-led project to dig deeper into the Earth's surface than ever before will be a breakthrough in detecting earthquakes including Tokyo's dreaded "Big One," officials said Thursday.
The deep-sea drilling vessel Chikyu made a port call Thursday in Yokohama after ending its first training mission at sea since being built in July at a cost of 500 million dollars.
The 57,500-ton Chikyu, which means the Earth in Japanese, is scheduled to embark in September 2007 on a voyage to collect the first samples of the Earth's mantle in human history.
The project, led by Japan and the United States with the participation of China and the European Union, seeks clues on primitive organisms that were the forerunners of life and on the tectonic plates that shake the planet's foundations.
A mysterious force shook buildings from Pascagoula, Mississippi to Chumuckla, Florida Friday morning, but no one News 5 talked to knows exactly what caused it. Sometime between 9:00 and 9:30 am, a thunderous sound rumbled through the Gulf Coast. Not everyone felt it, but those who did all described it in much the same way. Ruthstein Woods in Eight Mile said, "I was laying in the bed watching TV and all of a sudden, it was like big boom, like the ceiling or something was like falling. I jumped up and ran and looked, and I looked outside, but I didn't see anything. It was like real, real shaking and stuff."
Comment: Comment: Hmmm... we were talking about big booms just the other day and how they can be a type of earthquake... just what IS going on inside our planet?
Scientists fear that the Gulf Stream - the immense, enigmatic force behind ferocious weather and mild climate - is being remade. The effects could be profound.
First of Three Parts
Comment: Comment: "It may be the latest evidence of global warming"?? How much more evidence do they need?