The one common element in recent weather has been oddness. The West Coast has been warm and parched; the East Coast has been cold and snowed under. Fish are swimming into new waters, and hungry seals are washing up on California beaches.

A long-lived patch of warm water off the West Coast, about 1 to 4 degrees Celsius (2 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal, is part of what's wreaking much of this mayhem, according to two University of Washington papers to appear in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

"In the fall of 2013 and early 2014 we started to notice a big, almost circular mass of water that just didn't cool off as much as it usually did, so by spring of 2014 it was warmer than we had ever seen it for that time of year," said Nick Bond, a climate scientist at the UW-based Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean, a joint research center of the UW and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Bond coined the term "the blob" last June in his monthly newsletter as Washington's state climatologist. He said the huge patch of water - 1,000 miles in each direction and 300 feet deep - had contributed to Washington's mild 2014 winter and might signal a warmer summer.

Ten months later, the blob is still off our shores, now squished up against the coast and extending about 1,000 miles offshore from Mexico up through Alaska, with water about 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than normal. Bond says all the models point to it continuing through the end of this year.

The new study explores the blob's origins. It finds that it relates to a persistent high-pressure ridge that caused a calmer ocean during the past two winters, so less heat was lost to cold air above. The warmer temperatures we see now aren't due to more heating, but less winter cooling.

Co-authors on the paper are Meghan Cronin at NOAA in Seattle and a UW affiliate professor of oceanography, Nate Mantua at NOAA in Santa Cruz and Howard Freeland at Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

The authors look at how the blob is affecting West Coast marine life. They find fish sightings in unusual places, supporting recent reports that West Coast marine ecosystems are suffering and the food web is being disrupted by warm, less nutrient-rich Pacific Ocean water.

This extended Winter has been hard on us, but it's been especially hard on migratory birds moving into our area.

Thanks to the snow, birds are struggling to find food and many are dying or becoming too weak to fly.

Injured and sick birds are constantly being brought in to 'Homeward Bound City Pound' in Dartmouth.

"This robin was found in a puddle on the side of the road," says Katie Hauser, an employee at Homward Bound.

"Oh he's very skinny. You can feel, that's his keel bone right there. He should be puffed up just like a big chicken breast," said Hauser.

It's barely a week into April, and already snow has started falling in NSW.

Residents around Oberon in the state's Central Tablelands witnessed some falls in the first major cold snap this year.

Snow in this time of year is unusual in the area, on the western side of the Blue Mountains, with the falls brought on by a combination of a low pressure system off the coast and cold air in the upper atmosphere.

NSW woman Donna Coventry snapped this series of photos showing the snow in Shooters Hill, which saw some of the heaviest of falls in the Central Tablelands.

It's been a long, harsh winter for all local wildlife, but the top of the food chain is suffering most.

Andrew Hebda, the Nova Scotia Museum's curator of zoology, said the recent heavy snowfall is leaving predators hungry.

"It's been especially difficult for foxes, bobcats and coyotes," Hebda said Tuesday. "Anything that relies on rodents, rabbits or any small mammal for food is stressed."

According to Hebda, small mammals are hibernating longer this year, leaving carnivores at risk of starvation.

"We've had quite a few reports of saw-whet owls being found dead," he said. "If you make your living catching things that move, then there's a problem. They just don't have access to food."

Hope Swinimer, director of the Hope for Wildlife Society, has been rehabilitating wild animals for 20 years. So far this winter she's treated eight bobcats, two minks and countless other owls and rodents for starvation.

Heavy snowfall and blizzard left 98 people lost, 140 cars and more households covered in snow, and numerous livestock dead nationwide last week.

A total of 98 people were reported missing in Arkhangai, Dundgovi, Uvurkhangai, Tuv, Uvs and Bulgan Provinces. From them, 96 were found safe while one was found dead and one is still missing.

Dundgovi Province Police reported that the last missing person to be found is a 50-year-old herder of Erdenedalai soum, who was reported missing during a blizzard while herding. He was found far from his home in another soum, Luus.

The herder said he found a winter quarter of another herder and took shelter until the blizzard died.

Reykjavik locals had to sweep snow off their cars this morning as the few spring-like days are seemingly over and winter is back with a vengeance. The weather forecast for the next few days is summed up in two words: cold and windy.

The Reykjavik metropolitan police ask people to drive carefully today as the roads are icy. In south and west Iceland today, heavy snowfall is expected causing poor visibility. Today's winds are between 15- 23 m/s and more snow is expected this week. Spring may not be around the corner- yet.

A sexology professor has called on Danish schools to show students porn to help them become "critical consumers." Christian Graugaard believes it's important for teens to distinguish between adult movies and real sex relationships.

"Instead of having sex education be boring and technical, where you roll a condom onto a cucumber, I want us to educate young people to be critical consumers who see porn with reflection and critical distance," Graugaard, a Professor at Aalborg University, told public broadcaster DR.

Denmark is among one of the world's most porn-friendly countries. It lifted a ban on pornography in 1967. In 1969, it became the first country in the world to completely legalize pornography.

According to research conducted in the Nordic countries in 2006, up to 99 percent of teenage boys and 86 percent of teenage girls watched porn.

A 2013 study from the University of Copenhagen showed that viewing online porn or sexually explicit content in magazines has little influence on the sexual behavior of teens and young adults.

A cold snap has stopped storks on the way back for the summer in Poland in their tracks.

The birds have halted their advance from Africa and are weathering the cold snap in Romania and Bulgaria, researchers reported.

The few storks that have already made their way to Poland are struggling to find food and are getting nearer to human settlements than usual. But storks are equipped to deal with harsh weather and the scientists have asked for people to refrain from feeding them.

The overwhelming majority of storks have, however, been put off by the cold, snow and strong winds.

"They are not far," ornithologist Ireneusz Kaługa said. "We believe two or three days of better weather will be enough for them to turn up."

It has been snowing continuously and extremely heavily for 24 hours in Step Tihuta as a wave of polar air moves across Romania.

A blizzard - at the beginning of spring. April winter.

Snow is 10 to 15 inches deep in places and the wind has been blowing hard, turning driving into a nightmare.

The worst hit is the northern county of Suceava, where the National Road 2 to Ukraine was closed. In addition, dozens of motorists are stranded: some abandoned their cars and others spent the night on a bench.

Road workers have already spread 80 tons of non-slip material and say they will not stop until the storm is over, but anyone who wants to spend Palm Sunday and Easter in the Bistrita may need to use a sleigh.

At dawn temperatures dropped below zero. In Bistrita and Brasov minus two degrees, in Miercurea Ciuc -5 and -1 in Cluj were recorded.

An eye-opening cluster of dead elk is decaying on the shores of Palisades Reservoir after an unusual but natural occurrence of a herd venturing onto thin ice and breaking through.

The elk crashed through the ice on March 21 near where the Snake and Greys rivers meet at the southeast corner of the reservoir, which straddles the Wyoming-Idaho border, Wyoming Game and Fish Department regional supervisor Tim Fuchs said. The elk were later pulled to shore.

Warden Todd Graham responded to a call the day of the event and found 31 dead elk floating, Fuchs said.

"They kind of straddled the state line," Fuchs said. "Twenty-five were on the Idaho side and the remainder on the Wyoming side."

There were likely more dead elk that had drifted off, he said — potentially as many as 50 total.