People in two states took shelter amid wailing warning sirens Sunday as tornadoes touched down in Kansas and Oklahoma as part of an extreme weather system plowing through the nation's midsection.The system, which stretched from North Texas to Minnesota, also heaved hail -- dime- to softball-sized -- as well as heavy rainfall.Near Oklahoma City, a half-mile-wide tornado was reported, prompting an ...

    

232 days - it took over 30 years for Anchorage to set a new record for the longest snow season on record. The National Weather Service measured 2/10ths of an inch just after 9 p.m. Friday and 1/10th Saturday morning - breaking the old record of 230 days set in 1981-1982. Anchorage police responded to 22 crashes, 4 with injuries and 37 vehicles in distress between midnight and...

    

People in two states were taking shelter amid wailing warning sirens Sunday as tornadoes were confirmed to have touched down in Kansas and Oklahoma. Thunder clouds were also heaving hail -- dime to softball sized -- as well as rain across broad swaths of both states.Residents in downtown Wichita, Kan., were told to seek shelter Sunday afternoon after a tornado was confirmed on the ground with i...

    

Residents in downtown Wichita, Kan., were told to seek shelter Sunday afternoon after a tornado was confirmed on the ground with its presence hidden by heavy rainfall.The National Weather Service in Wichita warned of a large and extremely danger and potentially deadly tornado late Sunday. Weather spotters confirmed the tornado 7 miles northwest of Haysville and moving northeast at 30 mph, the...

    

Middle America should prepare for a stormy start of the week as much of the Plains will be watching the skies for twisters Sunday.There is an increasing storm and tornado threat from Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska southward to Kansas, according to Weather Channel meteorologists and low pressure in the Plains states will keep things "very unsettled and stormy" as the week goes on.On Monday, the sev...

    

Large sections of the Plains states came under tornado watches Saturday as a wave of storms swept through.The greatest threat late Saturday was in eastern Kansas and Oklahoma, weather.com reported, with central Oklahoma seeing a spike on Sunday.But Weather Channel meteorologist Michael Palmer saidthe storms on Sunday afternoon and evening were likely to carry a greater chance of tornadoes andthe...

    

A tornado tore through the New Orleans area Wednesday, damaging homes and ripping trees out of the ground, as intense storms lashed the area with rain.The National Weather Service (NWS) said the twister was one of two that caused damage in Kenner, Louisiana, near New Orleans International Airport.No injuries were reported, according to the Times Picayunes website NOLA.com, but about 5,000 Entergy...

    

A 54-year-old Missouri woman died Wednesday after apparently being struck by lightning, as states along the Mississippi River continue to fight back flooding and farmers struggle in what has been an unrelentingly wet spring in the region.Authorities say Connie Lou Wake was discovered by her son in the front yard of her home in the south-central part of the state. It was the first lightning fatalit...

    

The start of tornado season was late but deadly, and now severe weather with the potential for twisters threatens parts of the Plains and Midwest -- including major cities -- heading into the weekend, forecasters said.Severe thunderstorms looked likely to build over the Plains through the weekend and into Monday. There is some chance of tornadoes developing, the channel said, as moist air from the...

    

By Stephanie PappasLiveScience The world's glaciers lost 260 gigatons of water each year between 2003 and 2009, making these rivers of ice responsible for almost a third of sea-level rise in that time, new research finds.The study, appearing in Friday's issue of the journal Science, used multiple methods to pin down estimates of how much ice is lost from glaciers. The results suggest that on-the-g...