The glorious autumnal weather is to be blown away by "severe" conditions and potential flooding over coming days, forecasters have warned.
Households across swathes of the country were placed on high alert from tomorrow night as gale force winds and torrential showers threaten to bring about widespread damage.

Forecasters warned the storm sweeping across the country this weekend would bring "powerful" gusts of more than 60mph and up to two inches of rain in a matter of hours.

At least 92 people have died in floods that have swept Niger following torrential rains, according to the latest data released by the Prime minister's office on Friday. The data indicate that 72,396 families are affected with 511,484 people being victims, as at Thursday. All the country's eight regions are affected by floods with Tillabéry, Dosso and Niamey being the worst affected. Huge damage is reported on basic socio-economic infrastructure and other items crucial to the people.

Rice crops, schools, health centres, roads, bridges, dams have all been affected while a huge quantities of food and many cattle have been swept away by flood waters.

Canada - On the last day of summer, a few rogue snow flurries were actually spotted in Winnipeg Friday.

But Environment Canada's senior climatologist is sticking to his story.

Dave Phillips says Manitoba is still headed for a warmer-than-normal fall.

Phillips said after one of the hottest summers ever across Canada, Manitoba's lakes, rivers and the land are still very warm.

"There's a lot of residual heat that may certainly keep us warm as we move into October," he said.

That's certainly true in the short term, he added.

"Over the next few days nothing but that great Manitoba sunshine wall-to-wall."

Phillips is forecasting October to be warmer than normal, with normal to less-than-normal precipitation.

Ware Shoals, SC (Carolina) - Finding a snake in your yard may be a little scary, but what about one with two heads?

A Greenwood County family is trying to figure out how this is possible, but they've been taking care of the little guy for weeks.

Savanna Logan and her brother, Preston, have been amazed by this two-headed snake and showing it off at school since workmen at their home found it three weeks ago.

A National Geographic article reports that two-headed snakes are rare but not unheard of. It said they're formed like Siamese twins. Typically, two-headed snakes have two heads on one side, versus the one this family found, with one on each end.

Savanna Logan's grandfather took the snake to the Ware Shoals High School biology department. Teachers told him this was a "rough earth" snake and not a baby. It was nothing they'd seen before, with two heads, two tongues and four eyes.

"One head's bigger and one's more dominant than the other, but they both seem to control the body, the main head will do one thing then the other part is trying to go the opposite direction," said Savanna Logan's mother, Tina Stewart.

Savanna's grandfather has been taking care of the snake. He said he's seen it multiple times, crawl one way, stop, then pick up the other head and crawl the other way.

SLIDESHOW: Family keeps two-headed snake

The two-year-long decline is continuing at a rate of 5mm per year

"The latest sea level numbers are out," says Steven Goddard on Real-Science.com. "Envisat* shows that the two year long decline is continuing, at a rate of 5mm per year."

"No doubt Al Gore will pass this good news on to all his viewers," laughs Goddard

Britons can wave goodbye to the autumn as swathes of the country are set to be hit with freezing cold temperatures, frost and gale-force winds in an abrupt end to the balmy season.

Heavy rain and winds as strong as 50mph are expected to put a dampener on any weekend plans with some places seeing temperatures drop below freezing.

As the weather appears to skip a season, some parts of the country will feel frost tomorrow morning and gritters are already in place in preparation for winter.

Roughly 1,100 years ago, the Changbaishan volcano that lies along the border between northeastern China and North Korea erupted, sending pyroclastic flows dozens of kilometers and blasting a 5-kilometer (3-mile) wide chunk off of the tip of the stratovolcano. The eruption, known as the Millennium eruption because of its proximity to the turn of the first millennium, was one of the largest volcanic events in the Common Era. In the subsequent period, there have been three smaller eruptions, the most recent of which took place in 1903.

Starting in 1999, spurred by signs of resumed activity, scientists established the Changbaishan Volcano Observatory, a network to track changing gas compositions, seismic activity, and ground deformation. Reporting on the data collected over the past 12 years, Xu et al. find that these volcanic indices each leapt during a period of heightened activity from 2002 to 2006.

The authors find that during this brief active period, earthquake occurrences increased dramatically. From 1999 to 2002, and from 2006 to 2011, they registered 7 earthquakes per month using 11 seismometers. From 2002 to 2006, this rate increased to 72 earthquakes per month, peaking in November 2003 with 243 events. Further, tracking the source of the earthquakes, the authors tie the bulk of the events to a region located 5 kilometers (3 miles) beneath the volcanic caldera, a source that slowly crept upward throughout the study period, suggestive of an ongoing magmatic intrusion. Gas composition measurements collected from hot springs near the volcano showed spikes in carbon dioxide, hydrogen, helium, and nitrogen gases, which the authors suggest could be related to magmatic outgassing. Ground deformation studies, too, show a brief period of rapid expansion.

Spokane, Washington - The Table Mountain Complex of wildfires in central Washington's Chelan and Kittitas counties has tripled in size to more than 47 square miles, fire spokeswoman Jan Ulrich said Thursday.

A combination of factors - including warm temperatures, winds, very low humidity and low moisture in the vegetation - caused the complex to grow and merge into one large fire on Wednesday, Ulrich said.

"It was very active fire behavior yesterday and we are expecting the same today,'" Ulrich said Thursday.

The Table Mountain blaze is being fought by more than 750 firefighters and was 5 percent contained by Thursday night. It has not burned any homes, but Kittitas County Sheriff Gene Dana said Thursday that 161 homes north of Ellensburg and in the Liberty area are under a Level 3 evacuation, meaning residents are urged to leave.

The Table Mountain Complex is one of several wildfires burning on the eastern slopes of the Cascade Range. The largest, the Wenatchee Complex, has grown to about 65 square miles. It was 24 percent contained and was being fought by more than 2,000 firefighters.

The fires are blanketing Eastern Washington with smoke, and dry conditions have led the state to issue restrictions on logging and other industrial activities in the forests.

"Day 258 of 2012 is the highest for this date since satellite scanning of Antarctic ice areas commenced 33 years ago" the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition announced today. "It is also the fifth highest daily value on record." Coalition chairman, Hon Barry Brill, says the most remarkable aspect is the extent to which the 2012 area exceeds normal Antarctica averages. "The sea ice cover yesterday was 311,000 square kilometers above the 1979-2012 average. The surplus ice is more than twice the area of New Zealand." The Antarctic dimensions come partly at the expense of Arctic sea ice," said Mr. Brill. "Over the 33-year period aggregate global sea ice volumes have remained steady, but there are fluctuations between the two polar areas from year to year.

The fluctuations are the result of ocean currents and wind patterns, rather than temperatures. Antarctic ice is much more important than that of the Arctic. The area of its sea ice is a million square kilometers larger than the highest value ever recorded in the Arctic. Then, of course, the Antarctic is an entire continent, with more than 90% of the earth's glacial ice," said Mr. Brill. "It is appropriate that this record should occur in a week that The Listener carries a cover story featuring the winter low point of Arctic ice, along with multiple pictures of calving glaciers and forlorn polar bears," said Mr. Brill. "The magazine has little to say about the Antarctic apart from complaining that it is "poorly understood."

The author also avoids mentioning the glaring facts that no significant global warming has been recorded in the past 16 years, and that sea level rise is apparently decelerating. "It is unfortunate that under-informed writers, albeit unwittingly, mislead their readers who should be helped to understand the difference between sea ice extent and ice cap ice, both thickness and extent as regards the latter. The ice cap in the Arctic is small compared to the Antarctic. The cap of the Antarctic is increasing in thickness in most places, except around the Antarctic Peninsula. Sea ice extent is largely a consequence of sea surface temperature, ocean currents and wind," said Mr. Brill, who advised those interested in graphic confirmation of Antarctic sea ice readings to refer to this link as well as this link.

More than 70 percent of Earth is covered in water, and the oceans remain some of the most mysterious parts of our world. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 95 percent of what lies underwater has not ever been seen by humans. NASA confirms that humans have better maps of the surface of Mars than of the bottom of the sea.

Earlier this year, off the southern coast of Japan, Yoji Ookata, a deep-sea photographer and diver who has been documenting the deep sea for more than 50 years, saw something he had never observed before. A circular pattern of rippling sand about 80 feet below sea level and 6 feet in diameter was on the ocean floor. Ookata returned to the same spot with a TV camera crew in tow to capture the discovery and figure out who or what had created its intricate design.

Ookata dubbed his new find the "mystery circle" and was shocked to find out that a single puffer fish, no more than a few inches long, had created the circles using just one fin. The tiny fish works tirelessly day and night to complete the design. While the circled sculpture is beautiful to look at, Ookata and his crew learned that the fish's creation maintained a dual purpose. Female fish are attracted to the ridges and valleys left in the sand, and they deposit their eggs in the center. The eggs are then shielded from the ocean currents, as the higher points of the sculpture create a barrier to protect them. The more ridges a sculpture contains, the more likely it will attract the females of the species.

This discovery really just scratches the surface of knowledge about the ocean. The rest of the 95 percent still awaits exploration.