A raging flood wave that inundated parts of Prague is now heading north toward Germany, forcing the evacuation of thousands of people and leading to concerns about the safety of chemical plants.
More than 19,000 people have been evacuated from the flooding that has affected half of the Czech Republic, said firefighters spokeswoman Nicole Zaoralova. Some 3,000 people had to leave their homes in Usti nad Labem on the Elbe river near the German border where the waters were still on the rise Wednesday. High waters have already submerged parts of the city as well many other towns along the Elbe, the biggest river in the country.

They are also threatening major chemical factories, including one that released toxic chemicals into the Elbe during the devastating floods of 2002. The plants have been shut down as a precaution and chemicals removed, authorities said. Czech public television said a barrier that protects one chemical plant in Lovosice was leaking Wednesday and it was not immediately clear if it might be completely flooded.

Record floods in southern Germany have subsided to some extent in certain areas. Other parts of the country continue to hold their breath as the worst flooding may still be to come.For some residents in southern Germany, Wednesday marks the first day they can begin assessing the damage of the floods that have hit wide swathes of the country. For others, Wednesday could see the worst flooding yet.
The eastern German city of Dresden is one of the places where citizens are bracing for the worst. Over 600 people have been evacuated there as water levels are expected to rise to 8.27 meters (27.1 feet) - well above normal levels of around two meters.

Across the border in the Czech Republic, the story is the same: the cities of Usti-nad-Labem on the Elbe river are also expected to see peak flood stages. The same rush of water is expected to hit Dresden downriver on the Elbe.

Magdeburg, which also lies on the Elbe, is expecting water levels to rise nearly 5 meters (16.4 feet) above normal. A state of emergency has been declared there, and other cities along the Elbe in German state of Saxony are taking similar precautions.

Bitter cold conditions, heavy rains and hail have wreaked havoc in Cape Town, South Africa, with a new cold front set to arrive on Monday. The mountains close by have seen heavy snowfall.

Wilfred Solomons-Johannes of Cape Town Disaster Management told the media that 2,266 people have been affected by floods on the Cape Flats. Around 550 houses have been damaged in Bishop Lavis, Guguletu, Hout Bay, Khayelitsha, Philippi and Strand.

In Athlone, Elsies River, Langa and Parow Valley, roofs were blown off houses.

Cape Town mayor, Patricia De Lille called for "extraordinary emergency arrangements".

The tornado that killed nine and injured about 50 people near Oklahoma City on Friday has been rated a top-of-the-scale EF5, the National Weather Service said Tuesday.

It also had a record-breaking width of 2.6 miles, double the size of the 1.3-mile-wide tornado that devastated Moore, Oklahoma last month.

The National Weather Service posted this graphic to its website illustrating the path of the huge tornado.
EF5 tornadoes are extremely rare, and the Oklahoma City area seems to have bad luck with them. On May 3, 1999, an EF5 tornado hit the same area and killed 46 people. The Moore tornado last month killed 24 people and destroyed thousands of homes.

The death toll was lower for Friday's tornado because the area it hit wasn't as heavily populated as Moore, which is about 11 miles south of Oklahoma City. El Reno, where the EF5 tornado hit on May 31, is about 30 miles west of Oklahoma City.

There have been only eight tornadoes rated an EF5 in Oklahoma since 1950, meaning a quarter of them have hit near Oklahoma City in the past two weeks alone, according to a tweet from a Weather Channel meteorologist.

Yukon River flooding that knocked out power to the Alaska village of Galena has brought on a number of secondary problems, including how to keep bears away from hundreds of pounds of game meat that has spoiled in residents' refrigerators and freezers.
The flood caused by ice clogging the Yukon submerged some homes and washed out the road to the community's landfill. On Monday, emergency responders were developing plans to collect spoiled meat and fly it by helicopter to the dump, said Jeremy Zidek, spokesman for the Alaska Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.

"All the freezers filled with game began to get pretty bad," Zidek said.

Plans called for meat to be collected in one central location, loaded into a sling and lifted to the dump, he said.

Many Galena residents remain evacuated to other communities, and Zidek was unsure who would be doing the collecting. In rural Alaska, freezers often are kept in arctic entryways where it's cold in the wintertime and where they're accessible without entering a home.

Mississippi River communities scrambling Tuesday to fend off the rain-engorged waterway got discouraging news: More rains looming across much of the nation's midsection threatened to slow the potential retreat of the renegade river.

Such an outlook may not be welcomed in the northeast Missouri town of West Alton, where a makeshift levee's breach Monday fanned worries that the 570-resident town - which was mostly swept away by a flood in 1993 - would be inundated again. A voluntary evacuation advisory before the breach was fixed was heeded by just 15 percent of the town's residents, but "everyone else is ready to go at a moment's notice" if the hastily shored-up barrier shows signs of gives way, Fire Chief Rick Pender said Tuesday.

For now, he said, "everything is stable," with much of the flooding corralled in a railroad bed acting as a town-protecting channel.

"There are some spots not looking pretty (as defenses), but they're still holding the water back," Pender told The Associated Press by telephone. "Everyone is just monitoring the sandbags and barriers, waiting for this water to come down." The latest National Weather Service forecasts suggest that was to happen later Tuesday. But more rains expected in coming days, from St. Louis north to Minnesota and westward across some of the Great Plains, stood to drop another inch of precipitation here and there, adding more water to the Missouri River and the Mississippi River into which it feeds, National Weather Service hydrologist Mark Fuchs said.

Professional storm chasers in a specially rigged 'tornado intercept vehicle' dubbed TIV2 captured video from inside a strong wedge tornado around 7:15pm on Monday in Smith County, Kansas.

Brandon Ivey and Sean Casey, who appear in the Discovery Channel series Storm Chasers, captured the footage in eastern Smith County before the tornado ripped instruments from the top of the vehicle.

The two said one of TIV2's doors and the top hatch were blown open by the storm but the vehicle stayed on the ground.

Authorities in parts of Europe issued disaster warnings and scrambled to reinforce flood defenses as rivers swelled by days of heavy rain threatened to burst their banks. Several people have died or are missing in the floods in Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, and Switzerland since the rains began on Thursday. The floods have killed at least one person and left several missing across the Czech Republic. Czech officials warned that the waters of the Vltava river could reach critical levels in Prague late on Sunday as soldiers erected metal barriers and piled up sandbags to protect Prague's historic center from flooding after days of heavy rains swelled rivers and forced evacuations from some low-laying areas. Prague authorities also limited public transport and closed underground stations as water from the Vltava River overflowed into parts of the Old Town.
The area is a UNESCO heritage site boasting hundreds of well-preserved buildings, churches and monuments dating back mostly to the 14th Century, including the Charles Bridge that straddles the Vltava. "Due to the current situation, I have declared a state of danger for the area of the capital city," acting mayor Tomas Hudecek told a news conference. Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas said 200 soldiers have been deployed so far to help local authorities. In Germany, where at least four people have died or are missing, Chancellor Angela Merkel promised federal support for affected areas and said the army would be deployed if necessary. Several cities, including Chemnitz in the east, and Passau and Rosenheim in the south, issued disaster warnings. Passau, which is located at the confluence of three rivers, could see waters rise above record levels of 2002, said Mayor Juergen Dupper.

MetService has issued severe weather watches for parts of the country. Westland, Buller, Nelson, Marlborough, Canterbury, Wellington, Wairarapa, Bay of Plenty and Rotorua are among the regions set to face heavy rain and wild weather over the next 24 hours. Pictures sent to ONE News show heavy snow has been causing disruptions for motorists on the last day of the long weekend. Vehicles with chains waited for hours this afternoon for roads to open in Burkes Pass, just north of Tekapo. Eight firefighters in the area were called to push at least half a dozen cars out of the snow and assist police with road control, Volunteer Fire Chief Officer Craig Willis said.
MetService says there is a high possibility of heavy snow in North Canterbury and Marlborough tomorrow as the cold southerly rain turns into snow above 400 meters. Heavy rain and gales are expected for central New Zealand tomorrow as a front is expected to move slowly across the upper South Island and lower North Island. Snow of about 500 meters is predicted for Hanmer Springs and Seddon areas. As of early evening, there had been no deaths on the road this long weekend, putting the country on track to achieving the first zero road toll over the Queen's Birthday Holiday since records began. But with snow and flooding in many southern areas, police are warning motorists to take extra care. -TVNZ

Major flooding following tornado causes a giant sinkhole in Oklahoma City. Sarah Charlton reports