Snow fell in parts of northern Spain on Friday after months without any rain and high temperatures which made it feel more like summer than spring.
The freak snowfall happened in La Raya, a mountainous area of Asturias, while hailstones and heavy rain fell in Mediterranean parts of Spain including Catalonia and Valencia after months without a drop of precipitation.
Spain has registered the driest start to a year since records started, the Spanish state weather forecaster AEMET said on Wednesday, with less than half the average rainfall during the first four months of 2023.
So far this year, Spain has recorded 11 hotter-than-normal days, more than twice the number typically observed during a full year.
K. Umashanker The Hindu Fri, 12 May 2023 12:16 UTC
The two wild elephants photographed after the deadly attack, at Mallanur near Kuppam in Chittoor district on Friday.
A woman and an elderly man were trampled to death while two women were injured in an attack by wild elephants in two separate incidents in Kuppam mandal in the early hours of Friday.
According to forest officials, in the first incident, a woman was trampled to death while two others escaped with injuries when two wild elephants attacked them close to the Mallanur railway station in Kuppam mandal.
The deceased, identified as Usha, 36, a daily wager, used to shuttle between Mallanur railway station and Bengaluru. She was on her way to board a train along with the other two women from their village of Parthichenu when two jumbos charged at them. Usha was trampled to death while her two companions narrowly escaped with minor injuries after taking cover in a thicket.
Alisha Rahaman Sarkar Independent (UK) Sat, 13 May 2023 12:07 UTC
Authorities are searching for a 46-year-old missing surfer who is believed to have died after a shark attack on the west coast of the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia.
"A man is believed to have died following a shark attack," police said in a statement, adding that he was the only person to be attacked.
The man from Elliston was surfing at the Walkers Rocks Beach on the Great Australian Bight when he was attacked 30 to 50 metres offshore.
Police and paramedics were called to the beach about 7km north of Elliston after 10am (local time) on Saturday.
Over half a dozen boats and jet skis were pressed to search for the "well-known" local where he was last seen, Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.
Freddy Pawle Daily Mail Sat, 13 May 2023 10:59 UTC
A huge tornado-like water spout that dwarfed tankers (pictured) has been spotted off the coast of Sydney as a storm moves its way onto land
A huge tornado-like water has been spotted off the coast of Sydney, dwarfing two tankers seen sailing on the horizon.
The spout formed just off the coast near South Coogee in Sydney's eastern suburbs on Saturday as a storm moved closer to hitting the fringes of the city.
Water spouts form as heavy winds travel in opposing directions, causing the air to be drawn upwards in a spiralling column.
The rising air carries water vapour along with it into the sky where it can create showers and storms.
While mostly harmless, water spouts can cause damage if they move ashore, with one destroying a dozen homes in Lennox Heads in 2010.
The weather in Dubrovnik this weekend, and by the looks of it all weekend, has been decidedly unspring like. And today this video shows the power of nature as a huge waterspout formed near a Dubrovnik island.
Stormy skies, rain and wind have been the order of the day for the past week and today the terrible weather brought with its this monstrous waterspout near the island of Koločep near Dubrovnik.
The Adriatic Sea and the sky joined as the towering waterspout spun close to the shore. The video was sent to us by a reader who was on a local ferry between the islands.
Such weather conditions aren't that unusual in the south of Croatia, they are however strange at this time of the year when it is normally sunshine and blue skies.
New satellite images released from Nasa this week showcase the dramatic reappearance of California's Tulare Lake after water swallowed swaths of land across the state's agricultural center that had long been dry.
Taken between the start of February and the end of April and colored artificially to help distinguish the water from vegetation and bare ground, the images highlight the scale of the transformation across the region still grappling with the aftermath of this winter's heavy rains and snow.
This isn't the first time the "ghost lake" has caused widespread flooding, but the onslaught of weather whiplash wreaked havoc on residents, agricultural workers and farms - and it's far from finished.
Tucked against the Sierra Nevada's white-capped peaks, the region will have to reckon with surges of snowmelt filling its waterways as the weather warms. On Thursday, the snowpack in the southern Sierra was 436% of normal for this time of year, according to California's department of water resources (DWR).
The unusual spring that is taking place in the Alps is leaving images that were hard to see in the middle of winter. We found one of them on the Hintertux glacier (Austria) where half a meter of snow has just fallen on them.
At the gates of meteorological summer and wanting to forget the fateful spring of last year, the Alps are receiving regular and unusually heavy snowfalls. In France, both Tignes and Les 2 Alpes received their ration on May 1, and then they have seen it reinforced with a few more flakes, and now it has been the turn of Austria, where the Hintertux Gletscher has just reported no less than half a meter of new snow.
The eruptive activity at the volcano continues at moderately high levels.
The CENAPRED volcano observatory recorded five minor-to-moderate vulcanian-sized eruptions over the past 24 hours, of which one (05:26 local time yesterday) appeared to be powerful.
The explosion ejected hot, glowing lava bombs to approx. height of hundred meters above the summit crater following landing onto the upper snow-capped slopes. The eruption sent an ash column to 23,000 ft (7,000 m) height drifting SE.
Ashley Portillo koaa.com Thu, 11 May 2023 12:08 UTC
Thousands of people were without power on Thursday in Teller county after heavy and wet snow hit the area. Throughout the day, about four to six inches of wet, heavy snow fell across the county, making for a snowy and slushy commute for many.
At one point, more than 8,000 customers with Core Electric Cooperative were without power. Teller County offices also shut down because of the snow.
Comment: Elsewhere in the state:
Crews at Arapahoe Basin worked to clear inches of snow from the parking lot following an overnight storm.
We have a political system that awards office to the most ruthless, cunning, and selfish of mortals, then act surprised when those willing to do anything to win power are equally willing to do anything with it.
Comment: Elsewhere in the state: