Four people from Mukaka village under Chief Maranda in Mwenezi died on the spot on Sunday after being struck by a bolt of lightning as they sought shelter under a tree during a thunderstorm.

The incident comes exactly two weeks after seven other people in Chief Mazungunye's area, Bikita, were killed by lightning which struck their grass-thatched huts on February 2.

Masvingo acting provincial police spokesman Assistant Inspector Kudakwashe Dhewa referred all questions to national police spokesperson Chief Superintendent Paul Nyathi, who said he was yet to get the details of the incident.

Sources in Mwenezi said a bolt of lightning struck at around noon and killed Shaiwai Mukuvashuro (29), Thangson Chimiti (29), Batanai Moyo (32) and Richard Chandavengerwa (33) after they had sought refuge under a tree.

One New Brunswick man made it his mission to prove the East Coast has it worst than the rest of the country by uploading a YouTube video documenting just how much snow they've received.

It worked. You win, East Coast. We concede.

Kevin McGrath, a resident of Dieppe, probably wasn't expecting his home video showing off the amount of snow congregating around his house to hit almost 84,000 views on YouTube in two days but that's precisely what happened.

Local media in Argentina are reporting that heavy rain has caused deadly flooding in the province of Córdoba, central Argentina.

La Nacion say overflowing rivers caused flooding that has left 6 people dead, 4 missing and forced 400 to evacuate.

La Nacion say that as much as 320 mm of rain fell in just 12 hours in some areas. WMO report that 79 mm of rain fell at Cordoba Airport in 24 hours from 14 to 15 February 2015.

The severe weather has affected several part of the province, including the city of Córdoba, where authorities have declared an "alert and climate emergency" for 72 hours. Power has been cut off to prevent electrocution.

It's always nice to see a man enjoying his job.

Just take the Weather Channel's Jim Cantore as an example. The 51-year-old meteorologist displayed the infectious enthusiasm of a child while reporting on Sunday's blizzard in Massachusetts, US.

In the video below, which has gone viral over the past 24 hours, Cantore can be seen tramping around in knee-deep snow when the screen suddenly flashes pure white in a rare example of 'Thundersnow' - when lightning occurs during snowfall.

"Oh yes! Yes! Yes!" he exclaims. "We got it baby! We got it! We got it! Woo! Woo! We got it! Yes! Listen to that! Listen to that! Oh baby!"

Just as Cantore begins to regain his composure, the screen again flashes white, setting the excitable weatherman off on another bout of wild celebration. "Oh again! Again!" he shouts, throwing a handful of snow into the air. "That's a two-fer. That's a two-fer, baby. Oh my goodness!"

Four further flashes illicit similar exultations, as the meteorologist gives up any pretence of hiding his excitement.

A raging sandstorm has swept into Israel, Palestine and Lebanon causing the worst Israeli air pollution in years and whipping up huge waves in the Mediterranean Sea.

The storm, make up of accumulated dust carried from the far reaches of the Sahara Desert in North Africa, also engulfed Cairo for a second day.

Israel's Environmental Protection Ministry said air pollution levels were the country's worst in five years and the storm would last into tonight.

Israeli airports spokeswoman Liza Dvir said flights to and from the Red Sea resort city of Eilat were temporarily grounded due to the weather, though planes still flew through the country's main international hub, Ben Gurion Airport outside of Tel Aviv.

B.C.'s Haisla First Nation ordered the evacuation of Kitamaat Village and its 800 residents on Saturday night, three days after the community lost power following a major snowstorm.

Many residents are staying at the Kitimat Riverlodge Leisure Centre, about 15 kilometres north in the town of Kitimat.

Others are staying with family and friends.

The small towns of Kitimat and Terrace were hit with heavy snow earlier this week - nearly two metres of snow from a Pineapple Express weather system was dumped on the region.

The record for a 24-hour snowfall, set on Feb. 5, 1961, was 112 cm. Weather officials say Kitimat came close with 109 cm of snow in a 24-hour period.

Spanish emergency services have rescued at least 220 people trapped by snow on roads in northern Spain.

Hundreds of cars were stuck for up to 17 hours overnight on roads between Cantabria and the province of Palencia.

Local media report temperatures of -15C (5F) and up 40cm (1.3ft) of snow.

Around 100 British expats and tourists were among those trapped. Spanish police rescued several stranded in their vehicles shortly after arrival in Santander by ferry from Portsmouth.

Many had come to Spain hoping for a warm-weather holiday, but ended up having to spend the night in the sports hall of a local school and the dining room of a hotel.

The country is in the middle of a cold spell that is expected to worsen over the next three days, with cold weather alerts issued for 20 provinces.

Water vapor - Mississippi River-size amounts of it flowing at hurricane speeds miles above the Earth - is hurtling across the Pacific, an atmospheric river poised to drench a parched Northern California and the Sacramento region as early as Thursday night.

A crack team of science experts is going along for the ride, part of an experiment known as CalWater 2015, many of whom gathered at McClellan Park near Sacramento on Tuesday in preparation for the major weather event and the vital information they hope to pull from the phenomenon.

"It's a real milestone for us. Nothing of this scope has happened," said Marty Ralph, director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, of the project he's helping to lead. "One of the drivers of CalWater was the uncertainty of climate projections. We haven't had the data to measure the strength and structure of ARs. ... There's so much potential for the monitoring of atmospheric rivers."

They come from an alphabet soup of agencies, universities and scientific institutes, from NOAA to NASA, USGS and the DOE, to study atmospheric rivers and the role they play in water supply. The researchers will cast a wide net from the Sierra Nevada to the Coast Range and into the Pacific Ocean during a storm system that CalWater forecasters said will produce "copious" amounts of rain into Saturday.

"There will be ample opportunity to store this water, hopefully, and provide a little relief from the drought," said Allen White, a research meteorologist at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

The information the scientists glean, they hope, will help do nothing less than predict the future of water and weather in a California at the mercy of both. Think of atmospheric rivers as a massive water vapor pipeline, responsible for many of the major storms along the West Coast and about half of the rain and snow Northern California sees each year.

Knowing how atmospheric rivers are formed, how strong they are and where they will land can help communities and water experts in California and the West. They can better plan for water storage, storm and disaster preparedness, drought and climate change.

Belmont father Vincent Capriotti died after being struck by lightning while walking with his "best mate" Juke in a Bayswater park on Tuesday night.

The 58-year-old's son Grant said yesterday his family was struggling to believe that an "horrific act of nature" had taken his life.

"The family is absolutely devastated," he said. "We've lost the most loving and caring man in the entire universe.

"I don't think we'll ever recover from this."

But he said they were trying to draw some comfort from knowing that his daily walk with his black kelpie around local parks and the river was his favourite thing to do.

Seventy-six inches and counting.

That's how much snow has fallen in Eastport since Jan. 25, which is a new 10-day record for documented snowfall anywhere in Maine. The previous record of 71 inches was set more than 50 years ago at Ripogenus Dam, just west of Baxter State Park in Piscataquis County, over a 10-day period, from late December 1962 to early January 1963, according to the National Weather Service.

Victor Nouhan, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Caribou, emphasized Wednesday the amount of data and information available to the federal agency is limited, so he cannot say whether Eastport's 76 inches is the most snowfall ever in Maine in a week and a half. He said the Fryeburg area got an exceptionally heavy dumping of snow in February 1969, which may rival the amount that officially has been measured in Eastport.