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Gulf 'Dead Zone' Measures in Top 3

NEW ORLEANS - The oxygen-poor "dead zone" off the Louisiana and Texas coasts isn't quite as big as predicted this year, but it is still the third-largest ever mapped, a scientist said Saturday.

Crabs, eels and other creatures usually found on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico are swimming in crowds on the surface because there is too little oxygen in their usual habitat, said Nancy Rabalais, chief scientist for northern Gulf hypoxia studies.

HAL9000

Montana wildfire burns out of control

HELENA, Mont. - Wind helped a fire outside Glacier National Park jump firefighters' control lines Saturday, forcing evacuation orders at a lodge and closing a long stretch of highway, officials said.

Cloud Lightning

Colorodo man killed by lightning

Morrison, Colorado - The name of a man believed to have been struck and killed by lightning while jogging in Matthews Winters Park in Morrison Friday, has yet to be released.

The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office and the Foothills Fire Department say the man, who is believed to be around 20 years old, was struck in the park around 6 p.m. The park is along Highway 93 near I-70 north of Red Rocks.

Cloud Lightning

Farm worries mount as drought expands across Minnesota

Minnesota is dry and getting drier.

A band of severe drought now extends from the southwestern corner of the state, through the Twin Cities, up to the northeastern tip. The only part of Minnesota that isn't short on rain is a portion of the northwest, an updated map released Thursday by the National Drought Mitigation Center shows.

Bizarro Earth

3.2-magnitude quake shakes Kilauea as lava still flows

Hawaii - A magnitude-3.2 earthquake shook the lower east rift zone of Kilauea this morning at 8:59 a.m., but it isn't clear if the quake will have any effect on the ongoing eruption.

The earthquake was centered beneath Pu'ulena crater at a depth of about two miles, according to an update from the U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.

Cloud Lightning

3-day stretch of heat, humidity kills 1,200 cattle in South Dakota

More than 1,200 cattle died during a three-day blast of heat and humidity in northeast South Dakota, ranchers, feedlot owners and authorities reported, though the weather was expected to ease Thursday.

The high Wednesday in Aberdeen was 96, at least the third straight day the city's temperature was in the 90s. The heat index, which is related to humidity, hit 109.

Video

Floods and fires across Europe captured from space

Highlighting the extreme weather conditions hitting Europe, space sensors aboard ESA's Envisat satellite have detected the worst floodwaters to hit Britain for 60 years and deadly fires raging through southern Europe.

Heavy rains caused the River Thames to burst its banks on Wednesday, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of homes in Britain's university city of Oxford. The flooding across England and Wales has left tens of thousands without electricity and water.

The Environment Agency still has three severe flood warnings in place - two on the Thames around Oxford and one on the Ock River near Oxfordshire. In areas where flooding is beginning to recede, sanitation officials are warning of health risks posed by stagnant waters.

Bizarro Earth

Peru cold snap kills 70 children

At least 70 children have died during a spell of freezing weather in the Andean regions of Peru, officials have said.

Question

Earthquake "Swarm" Strikes Africa, Puzzles Experts

The tremors began on July 12, so faint that they were barely noticed. A week later, a couple of good jolts sent people fleeing their offices in downtown Nairobi. Then the tremors were gone.

Scientists are still unsure about what exactly caused this "earthquake swarm" - a cluster of relatively mild shakes spaced out over several days in Kenya and Tanzania. The quakes - one of which reached magnitude 5.9 - caused little damage but spread fear that a big quake was imminent.

Cloud Lightning

Record temperatures, rainfall baste Northern California coast

Record temperatures and rain are basting the northern coast of California, a region known for brisk ocean breezes and chilly nights all year long.

In Crescent City, a coastal town just south of the Oregon border, the mercury dipped to 60 degrees early Monday morning - 3 degrees higher than the previous overnight low-temperature record, which stood for 15 years. The overnight record is also known as the "maximum minimum."