Earth Changes
In the Ukrainian capital of Kiev temperatures dropped to -20° degrees Celsius.
For several days, unusually cold weather and snow have slammed Eastern Europe, as well as other parts of Europe and central and western Turkey.
CNN meteorologist Brandon Miller said the heart of the cold air was still centered over Eastern Europe Wednesday, including Russia, Romania, Belarus and Poland as well as Ukraine, with temperatures generally a couple of degrees lower Wednesday than the day before.
The Romanian capital, Bucharest, saw a low of -23 degrees Celsius (-9.4 degrees Fahrenheit) early Wednesday, compared with an average low of -4 degrees Celsius (25 degrees Fahrenheit) at this time of year.
The western town of Prijepolje declared a state of emergency this week, while nearby Nova Varos has been in a state of emergency since January 11. More than 60,000 citizens from Loznica, Ljubovija and Valjevo were without electricity on Thursday.
The Serbia power company EPS said power outages have been periodically occuring in the area around Kraljevo and Nis.
The south of the country has been hit hardest by the severe winter weather.
© AFP/ David Ebener
The incident took place on Monday in Pitkyaranta, a town of 12,000 located near the Finnish border, some 670 kilometers northeast of Moscow, local police reported.
"A frightened man called police to report he had just been attacked by wolves...not in the woods, but on the city's Parkovaya Ulitsa," a police spokesman said.
A police patrol dispatched to Parkovaya Ulitsa discovered several wolves waiting outside the door of an apartment building. The animals ignored the police car, but one of them charged when the officers left the vehicle. They shot the wolf and then another who also tried to attack, prompting the pack to trudge back toward the forest where it came from.
The thermometer stood at moderate minus 12 degrees Celsius in Pitkyaranta on Monday, down some six degrees from last week's average, according to Gismeteo.ru weather forecaster.
© Alejandro Bringas/European Pressphoto Agency
Indigenous Tarahumara drove to another community to receive humanitarian aid in the midst of a drought.
Indigenous Tarahumara drove to another community to receive humanitarian aid in the midst of a drought.
The government in the past week has authorized $2.63 billion in aid, including potable water, food and temporary jobs for the most affected areas, rural communities in 19 of Mexico's 31 states. But officials warned that no serious relief was expected for at least another five months, when the rainy season typically begins in earnest.
While the authorities say they expect the situation to worsen, one of the five worst-affected states, Zacatecas, got a reprieve on Sunday. Heriberto Félix Guerra, head of the Ministry of Social Development, saw the rain, the first in 17 months, as a guardedly reassuring sign.
Scientists in Alaska are worried that a massive volcano on a remote island about a thousand miles southwest of Anchorage is primed to erupt and spew a giant ash plume that could paralyze intercontinental travel.
The Alaska Volcano Observatory on Tuesday bumped the alert status for the Cleveland Volcano from yellow to orange - one step below the highest alert level.
"Renewed eruptive activity of Cleveland Volcano has been observed in satellite data," the observatory said, noting that a new 130-foot lava dome - a visible bulge of gathering lava - had formed in the mountaintop's crater.
The group said there have been "no observations" of explosive activity, but cautioned it "remains possible for intermittent, sudden explosions of blocks and ash to occur at any time, and ash clouds exceeding 20,000 feet above sea level."
The Alaska Volcano Observatory on Tuesday bumped the alert status for the Cleveland Volcano from yellow to orange - one step below the highest alert level.
© Kym Yano/AP
Alaskan scientists have raised the alert level for Cleveland Volcano to Orange from Yellow.
Alaskan scientists have raised the alert level for Cleveland Volcano to Orange from Yellow.
The group said there have been "no observations" of explosive activity, but cautioned it "remains possible for intermittent, sudden explosions of blocks and ash to occur at any time, and ash clouds exceeding 20,000 feet above sea level."
© AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda
A woman looks out of a window covered in frost on a bus in Bucharest, Romania, Thursday, Feb. 2, 2012. At least 11,000 villagers have been trapped by heavy snow and blizzards in Serbia's mountains, authorities said Thursday, as the death toll from Eastern Europe's weeklong deep freeze rose to 122, many of them homeless people.
A woman looks out of a window covered in frost on a bus in Bucharest, Romania, Thursday, Feb. 2, 2012. At least 11,000 villagers have been trapped by heavy snow and blizzards in Serbia's mountains, authorities said Thursday, as the death toll from Eastern Europe's weeklong deep freeze rose to 122, many of them homeless people.
The harshest winter in decades has seen temperatures in some regions dropping to minus 30 C (minus 22 F) and below, and has caused power outages, traffic chaos and the widespread closure of schools, nurseries and airports.
The stranded in Serbia are stuck in some 6,500 homes in remote areas that cannot be reached due to icy, snow-clogged roads with banks reaching up to 5 meters (16 feet). Emergency crews were pressing hard to try to clear the snow to deliver badly needed supplies, and helicopters were dispatched to some particularly remote areas in Serbia and neighboring Bosnia.
On Bosnia's Mt. Romanija, near Sarajevo, a chopper thumped down in the small hamlet of Ozerkovici, where a single nun lives in a Serb Christian Orthodox monastery surrounded by just a few village residents.
Wrapped tight in a black jacket and a scarf, Sister Justina greeted aid workers at her monastery: "I live alone here," she said, but noted "God will help me."
In Serbia, relief efforts are concentrated on evacuating the sick, on food delivery and gasoline distribution.
"We are trying everything to unblock the roads since more snow and blizzards are expected in the coming days," Serbian emergency police official Predrag Maric told The Associated Press.
© AccuWeather
The severe weather risk includes the potential for a few tornadoes as well.
The severe weather risk includes the potential for a few tornadoes as well.
A storm system will slowly push onto the southern Plains from the Rockies, setting up powerful and potentially destructive thunderstorms toward evening.
The main threats with these storms will be large hail, high winds and flash flooding. However, there is the potential for a few tornadoes, especially after dark.
On the cold side of the storm, heavy snow and strong winds will produce a blizzard in portions of Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas. On the warm side, damaging severe thunderstorms will roll across west-central Texas and west-central Oklahoma.
A cold snap kept Europe in its icy grip on Thursday, pushing the death toll to 160 as countries from Italy to Ukraine struggled to cope with temperatures that plunged to record lows in some places.
Nine more people died in Poland overnight as temperatures hit minus 32 Celsius (minus 25.6 Fahrenheit) in the southwest, bringing the overall toll to 29 since the deep freeze began last week, national police said.
In Ukraine, tens of thousands of people have headed to shelters trying to escape the freeze that the emergencies ministry said has now killed 63 people.
Most of them literally froze to death on the street, with only a handful making it to hospital before succumbing to hypothermia, the ministry said.
Shivering and hungry, tens of thousands of Ukrainians have sought help in the more than 2,000 temporary shelters set up by the authorities to help the poor survive the fearsome spell of cold weather.
The shelters offer warmth and hot food in a country where temperatures fell to minus 33 degrees Celsius in the Carpathians in the west of the country and minus 27 in the capital Kiev.
Nine more people died in Poland overnight as temperatures hit minus 32 Celsius (minus 25.6 Fahrenheit) in the southwest, bringing the overall toll to 29 since the deep freeze began last week, national police said.
© AFP, Sasa Djordjevic
A man walks along a snow covered street in the southeastern Serbian town of Medvedja
A man walks along a snow covered street in the southeastern Serbian town of Medvedja
Most of them literally froze to death on the street, with only a handful making it to hospital before succumbing to hypothermia, the ministry said.
Shivering and hungry, tens of thousands of Ukrainians have sought help in the more than 2,000 temporary shelters set up by the authorities to help the poor survive the fearsome spell of cold weather.
The shelters offer warmth and hot food in a country where temperatures fell to minus 33 degrees Celsius in the Carpathians in the west of the country and minus 27 in the capital Kiev.
© Unknown
Meanwhile a little to the east and north, over the border in Alberta, with over three months left to go in the ski season, Marmot Basin near Jasper has already received over 12 feet (372 cm) of snowfall which is 93% of its annual average. If the next three months produce even typical amounts of snowfall, Marmot Basin will exceed its all time snowfall record of 529 cm set way back in 1965.
Comment: See these also: Wolves Likely to Spread Across Germany
Wolves return to Moldova for first time in 40 years
And this from Russia one year ago: 'Super pack' of 400 wolves terrorise remote Russian town after killing 30 horses in just four days