Low temperatures not seen for 300 years could be on the way to Britain thanks to a drop in solar activity, experts have warned.

If you were enjoying the current warm spell, enjoy it while it lasts as forecasters have warned that the UK could enter a mini-ice age.

A Met Office-led study in conjunction with scientists at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Reading, found that a return to low solar activity not seen for centuries could increase the chances of cold winters in Europe and eastern parts of the United States.

But the study, which was published in the Nature Communications journal, added that the freeze will not be enough to halt global warming.

Sarah Ineson, a Met Office scientist and lead author of the study said: "This research shows that the regional impacts of a grand solar minimum are likely to be larger than the global effect, but it's still nowhere near big enough to override the expected global warming trend due to man-made change.

"This means that even if we were to see a return to levels of solar activity not seen since the Maunder Minimum, our winters would likely still be getting milder overall."

It is understood that the sun's output increases and decreases, measured by the number of sunspots on the star's surface, over a timescale of 100 to 200 years.

Firefighters continue to battle the elements, in what is shaping up to be an extreme wildfire season.

Firefighters have already said that the hot, dry conditions are ripe for wildfire. Now there is new proof in the form of numbers.

Washington has already seen 313 wildfires in 2015.

By comparison, in 2014 there were only 214 wildfires and even fewer in the previous years. In 2012, firefighters battled 155 brush fires and only 55 in 2011.

Fire officials said it is combination of several factors. First, the snowpack in Washington is the lowest it has been since at least 1981. Secondly, what started as a warmer, drier winter continued into an even hotter, drier spring.

In May, the average temperature is 60 degrees according to KREM Chief Meteorologist Tom Sherry. However in 2015, May delivered six days with temperatures soaring beyond 80 degrees.

Sherry said June delivered much of the same. More than one-third of the month had temperatures registering above 80 degrees and a few 90 degree days.

A woman and her dog were injured when they were attacked by a bear Monday night outside a home near Chico, in Butte County.

At about 11:30 p.m. Monday a woman who lives in Magalia heard a noise in her yard and her dog began barking. She let the dog out, heard sounds of a fight and stepped out herself.

According to California Department of Fish and Wildlife Capt. Patrick Foy, she said a bear immediately came out from beneath a blue tarp, clawed her on the shoulder and bit her before running off.

The woman was taken to the hospital and treated for non-life-threatening wounds and given rabies treatment. The dog, a 9-year-old golden retriever, was taken to a veterinarian, and is in tough shape, according to Foy. "Sounds like he fought hardily," Foy said of the dog.

Fish and Wildlife are deploying a trap to the area to try and capture the offending bear. Foy said it should be in place by the end of the day.

As a violent thunderstorm tore through northern Maryland Tuesday evening, it unloaded massive hail - large enough to rank among the biggest in Maryland state weather records.

Nicka Pohl shared with Capital Weather Gang the photo of a softball-size, spiked hailstone measuring approximately 4 inches in diameter, which fell near Timonium. Hail larger than golf balls fell throughout the Hunt Valley, Cockeysville, and Timonium areas in northern Baltimore County.

The hail dented cars all over the area and smashed back windows, Pohl said.

Christopher Strong, the warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service forecast office serving Washington and Baltimore area, said Maryland records show there have been only two instances of hail larger than the 4-inch stone Pohl collected. Hail measuring 4.5 inches in diameter was observed in LaPlata in 2002 when a large, violent F4 tornado swept through the area. And a stone measuring 4.5 inches was reported in Baltimore in 1970.

A photographer taking night time beach shots could not believe his eyes as he spotted the natural phenomenon

This stunning time-lapse footage shows the beautiful sight of the Northern Lights appearing in the skies over Cornwall.

A photographer taking night time beach shots could not believe his eyes as he spotted the natural phenomenon.

Chris Small was on the beach at Bude around 1.30am on Tuesday when the eerie ribbons of purple light appeared in the star strewn sky above.

The Northern Lights are frequently sighted in the Arctic Circle and Scandinavia and sometimes even Scotland but very rarely seen as far south as Cornwall.

And Mr Small was delighted.

"I've never seen them before although I've always wanted to," he said.

Wildfires are consuming more than a square mile of forest as 50 fires burn throughout Northeast Florida, including a fire in Nocatee that came within 20 feet of homes, according to the Florida Forest Service.

Greg Dunn, senior forester, said three bulldozers plowed about two miles of fire lines in the Nocatee area to contain the 8-acre fire.

Storms soaked parts of Northeast Florida Sunday night, although it was a mixed bag for fire officials. While the rain was helpful, lightning bolts compounded the problem by igniting more fires.

Of the 50 fires burning 720 acres in Baker, Clay, Duval, Nassau, Putnam and St. Johns counties, 37 of them have been started by lightning, according to the Forest Service.

A big sinkhole has opened up on a Lenexa golf course.

The sinkhole is on the left side of the fairway on the 13th hole at Canyon Farms Golf Course. Despite the change in the landscape, the course and the hole itself remain open.

"I believe it's par 4," said golfer Jerry Nelson. "But they have set the tee box way up front about 120 yards out."

Shortening the hole takes the sinkhole out of play.

A statement from the owners said a portion of the course is built over a nonoperating limestone mine. The statement said the majority of the mine is considered stable, according to various geotechnical studies.

Nelson and his partner said they took a good look at the sinkhole as they played the course.

A total of 458 people were evacuated to six shelters in Costa Rica's Caribbean and Northern regions due to flooding caused by heavy rains beginning over the weekend, the National Emergency Commission (CNE) reported Monday evening.

Most of those affected are residents from the cantons of Sarapiquí in Heredia, Matina, Siquirres and Pococí in Limón, as well as Grecia and San Carlos in Alajuela. A total of 92 communities are reported to be affected to some degree by the heavy rains, according to the report.

CNE officials reported that the floods have affected five roads, blocking passage to at least 24 communities. Six bridges currently are closed, and several communities do not have access to drinking water because two aqueducts failed over the weekend.

Officials from the National Roadway Council and the Public Works and Transport Ministry on Monday afternoon reported that passage on Route 32, the main highway connecting San José with the province of Limón, is closed at the Blanco River bridge at kilometer 58.

The uncommon discovery of a peculiar-looking shark is the first sighting of the second largest living fish in Australian waters for 85 years.

James Owen and his crew accidentally caught the 6.3-metre basking shark in their trawler at Portland, west of Warrnambool, in Victoria on Sunday but instead of selling the sought-after Chinese delicacy, they decided to donate the rare three-tonne male fish to science.

Only smaller than the whale shark, the mammoth fish has an unusual pink/purple hue to its skin and a huge flat nose.

The last recording of this species being captured was in the 1930s by a skipper at Lakes Entrance in eastern Victoria.

A heat wave raging through southern Pakistan has claimed more than 700 lives, officials said, with witnesses describing victims "dropping dead" on the streets.

Temperatures have exceeded 110 degrees in recent days, and thousands of people have been left to face the heat without electricity amid widespread power outages.

At Karachi's largest hospital, more than 150 people have been admitted for heatstroke since Monday, according to Ali Nawazish, the emergency room registrar at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center.

"Some patients have come to us with their families, some have been found by ambulances, and some families have come here looking for their loved ones who they fear are dead or affected," Nawazish said. "It's chaos."

Ramzan Chippa, who runs a volunteer ambulance service with a fleet of 300, told NBC News that all his vehicles are committed and that most of their relief activity is taking bodies to morgues.

"Most of the bodies we are recovering are people dying on the streets. They're just dropping dead," said Chippa. "Graveyards have filled up."

The army has joined the relief effort, setting up heatstroke relief camps in Karachi and five other cities in Sindh province. But relief systems are stretched across the city, and small, angry skirmishes have erupted in protest.

A deputy commissioner in the Korangi suburb of Karachi admitted that public relief services are stretched to their limits.

"People are screaming at us on our helpline to get help them, and when we do, they fight to get on the ambulance," he said.

More opposition parties, including the Karachi-based Muttahida Qaumi movement, are blaming the federal government for the crisis, which they say has been compounded by massive power cuts all across Sindh province.

Dildar Shah lives in the Karachi suburb on Malir and has lost two neighbors to the extreme conditions. "This is like the Day of Judgment," he said. "It seems all of us will die in this heat together."