Weather

Typhoon Gloria gained strength as it barreled through the Philippines' northernmost islands Thursday, leaving at least 12 people dead and forcing thousands from their homes. Farther west in Vietnam, Tropical Storm Frankie left a least 17 people dead and dozens missing after battering the northern Red River delta for nearly two days, officials said Thursday. The crew members of 40 fishing vessels were among the missing after Frankie swept in from the Tonkin Gulf late Tuesday with winds of 56 miles an hour and dumped up to 8 inches of rain on Hanoi, the port city of Haiphong and five provinces, Vietnam News said. Skies cleared Thursday. In the Philippines, Typhoon Gloria was heading toward southern Taiwan, packing winds of up to 106 mph, the Manila weather bureau said.

Don Lloyd, a Lomira, Wis., dentist, photographed this tornado shortly before it hit Oakfield, Wis., Thursday night. Photo by Associated Press

Prayers for rain were answered briefly in Pinetop, Ariz. Photo by Associated Press

How hot was it? Last year was the hottest year on record, according NASA's top world temperature taker. The globe's average temperature for 1995 was an estimated 59.8 degrees Fahrenheit, barely edging out 1990 and about 0.8 degree above the 1950-1980 average. That's according to James E. Hansen, writing in the June 15 issue of Geophysical Research Letters.

Hurricane Bertha slapped Cape Fear and then battered a string of coastal towns Friday, ripping off roofs, washing away piers, flooding roads and toppling a Ferris wheel. More than 250,000 people fled the beaches before the storm, which crashed ashore with top winds of 105 mph, drenching the coastline and spinning off tornadoes hundreds of miles inland.

Hundreds of thousands of coastal residents from Florida to North Carolina moved inland Wednesday while forecasters puzzled over the eventual path of Hurricane Bertha, which was slow dancing northward off the Eastern Seaboard. A long-anticipated turn to the north seemed to steer Bertha and its 100-mph winds away from Florida, but forecasters warned that the South Carolina shore, North Carolina's Outer Banks and other barrier islands could be in danger by Thursday or Friday.

Military helicopters landed in snow 3 feet deep Tuesday to rescue 50 people trapped by South Africa's heaviest snowfall in three decades. At least 13 people have died in the sudden storm, which hit five days ago. More search missions are planned Wednesday for 48 people still missing, most of them hikers in mountains near Johannesburg.

The grocery shelves were emptying rapidly in Puerto Rico Monday morning. Photo by Associated Press

Tropical Storm Bertha reached hurricane strength Sunday, expanding in size and strength as it bore down on a strip of Caribbean islands. A U.S. Air Force hurricane plane recorded sustained winds of 75 mph when it flew into the storm Sunday evening, the National Weather Service said. The storm grew larger as it headed straight for the Virgin Islands, spinning off winds that extended for 175 miles from its center. A band of lead showers that did no more than rustle trees and water some parched islands announced the storm's advance Sunday night.

Tropical Storm Bertha emerged from the warm waters off Africa on Friday and began the westward trek that could send it into the eastern Caribbean at full hurricane strength by early next week. On Friday evening, though, it remained a modest storm, with peak winds of about 40 miles per hour. Satellite photos at 5 p.m. placed Bertha about 1,180 miles - several days - east of the Lesser Antilles. It was traveling west-northwest at 21 miles per hour.

The past week of cool, rainy weather should become a soggy memory as summer temperatures heat up the Inland Northwest. Highs in the 80s are forecast starting Sunday and should continue through the Fourth of July holiday weekend. "It's going to warm up," said Lyle Hammer, forecaster with the National Weather Service in Spokane. "It should be real nice Monday and Tuesday."

Hurricane warnings were issued from Zihuatenejo to Manzanillo on Mexico's Pacific coast Saturday night as Tropical Storm Alma was upgraded to a hurricane. Alma, a small but intense hurricane, was nearly stationary 90 miles south-southwest of the port of Ciudad Lazaro Cardenas at 5 p.m. PDT Saturday, the National Hurricane Center in Miami reported. But the hurricane center said Alma was expected to drift north-northwest overnight and hit land sometime today, bringing 90 mph winds and up to 10 inches of rain. Afterward, it was expected to weaken as it moved inland.

A violent sandstorm at one of China's most popular tourist sites killed five children who got lost in the haze and fell into ditches where they drowned. The storms struck Dunhuang, a desert oasis famed for its caves, on Wednesday, damaging crops and electric cables, the official Xinhua News Agency said Sunday.

The cleanup begins Monday in Lees Summit, Mo. Photo by Associated Press

Atlanta warmed up for the Olympics with the Atlanta Grand Prix. For the first event in the new Centennial Olympic Stadium, it was 92 degrees, a record for May 18 in Atlanta. Sergey Bubka of the Ukraine and Noureddine Morceli of Algeria took notice.

Hail turned the streets white on Friday in Fallbrook, Calif., east of San Diego. Associated Press

Fierce windstorms across Ukraine killed two people, tore roofs off hundreds of homes and left thousands without electricity, emergency officials said Thursday. The winds raged through most of central and eastern Ukraine on Tuesday and Wednesday, abruptly ending weeks of unseasonably warm, calm weather.

A rising river spilled into streets and basements and forced several residents to evacuate a rain-drenched Minnesota town on Saturday. The state sent the National Guard to help. "On the streets they're wearing boots above their knees and it's running into their boots," said Mary Novak, whose home in Warren, Minn., is only 80 feet from the Snake River. In the West, residents of low-lying areas around Fallon, Nev., piled sandbags as water edged toward the top of the Lahontan Reservoir dam, threatening to spill unchecked into the Carson River.

Mud season in the uplands of North Idaho is less a span of the calendar and more a series of sodden, sloppy springtime adventures. Some years the season seems not to come at all. The expected expanses of impassable dirt road simply fail to materialize. But other years bring axle-deep swamps of brown goo, oceans of boot-sucking ooze, minefields of rig-busting potholes. This spring brought one of our most notable and notorious mud times.