Tropical Storm Ernesto kills 2 in Mexico

VERACRUZ, Mexico (AP) —Tropical Storm Ernesto lost strength as it moved inland early Friday, though forecasters warned it could still dump dangerous rains in the mountains of Mexico's flood-prone southern Gulf region.

By Jose Dominguez, AFP/Getty Images

A man stands on a damaged pier in Mahahual, Mexico, after the passage of Ernesto on Wednesday.

By Jose Dominguez, AFP/Getty Images

A man stands on a damaged pier in Mahahual, Mexico, after the passage of Ernesto on Wednesday.

In Tabasco state, two fishermen drowned when the stormed passed through the area Thursday, Gov. Andres Granier told reporters.

Granier said the storm's strong winds ripped rooftops from several homes but residents refused to evacuate, fearing their possessions might be stolen. "People have chosen to stay in their homes and we are helping them," he said.

Ernesto came ashore near the waters dotted with oil rigs operated by the state oil company in the far southern Gulf of Mexico. The government closed its largest Gulf coast port, Veracruz, and the smaller ports of Alvarado and Coatzacoalcos.

Coatzacoalcos, a major oil port, got seven inches (177 millimeters) of rain in the 24 hours before Ernesto's center passed just a few miles (kilometers) away, according to Mexico's weather service. San Pedro in the neighboring state of Tabasco had seen more than 10 inches (273 millimeters).

About 2,000 army and navy personnel were on standby to head to inland mountains to help in rescue work if needed, said Noemi Guzman, Veracruz state civil defense director. Guzman said no flooding had been reported at any of the state's many rivers.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Ernesto's sustained winds had declined to 40 mph (65 kph) by late Thursday, just above the minimum 39 mph to be considered a tropical storm. It said the storm would continue weakening through the night and should dissipate by midday Friday, although it warned that heavy rains could continue into Friday night.

Ernesto was a weak hurricane when it made its first landfall late Tuesday near the cruise ship port of Mahahual in Yucatan, but it weakened as it crossed the peninsula and then spun into the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday night.

Late Thursday, the storm was centered about 85 miles (135 kilometers) southwest of the port city of Veracruz, moving to the west at 14 mph (22 kph).

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Ernesto still had the potential to cause flooding and could produce rainfalls of up to 15 inches in some parts of the mountainous areas of Veracruz, Tabasco, Puebla and Oaxaca states before dissipating.

There were no reports of major flooding in Veracruz state and there have been only minor landslides on some roads, said Raul Zarrabal, the state's communications secretary.

A new tropical depression formed in the Atlantic on Thursday far from land. It was the seventh tropical depression to form in the Atlantic and forecasters said it could strengthen into a tropical storm Friday as it took a path toward the Caribbean. Late Thursday, it had maximum sustained winds of 35 mph (55 kph) and was 1,045 miles (1,680 kilometers) east of the Windward Islands.

The Atlantic hurricane season got off to an early start and will likely stay busy, producing a few more storms than originally predicted, U.S. forecasters said Thursday.

Forecasters said warmer-than-normal sea surface temperatures and wind patterns that favor storm formation mean chances are higher for an above-normal season. However, that is tempered with the expected development of an El Nino weather pattern over the Pacific that may suppress storms later in the season.

In the Pacific, Gilma weakened from a hurricane to a tropical storm and was not seen as a threat to land. It was about 695 miles (1,115 kilometers) west-southwest of the southern tip of Mexico's Baja California Peninsula, with maximum sustained winds near 70 mph (110 kph).

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Rare January Tornado Kills Two in Alabama (ContributorNetwork)

The Associated Press reports two people have died in Alabama due to a fast-moving line of severe storms. Officials have seen damage patterns that are concurrent with an EF2 tornado, although that has not been determined by National Weather Service officials at this point. If a tornado did touch down, it is a rare weather phenomenon in January for the U.S.

Tornadoes don't normally form in the winter, yet over the past three years winter time severe storms have made headlines.

Data

The National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center states an average of 17 tornadoes struck the U.S. in January over the past three years. There were six in 2009, 30 in 2010 and 16 in 2011. Preliminary data in 2012 indicate there have been 13 possible tornadoes this year as of Jan. 17. No deaths have been reported in the previous three years until the streak was broken this year.

Outbreak of 2008

Fox News reported in early January 2008 that eight people died due to severe storms that struck the Midwest. Heavy flooding swept away three people in Indiana when five inches of rain melted snow that contributed to the massive flooding. A tornado in central Arkansas killed one resident and a separate tornado killed two people in Missouri.

An EF3 tornado hit northern Illinois, the first tornado to hit Illinois in January since 1950. The storm track of the 2008 tornado was 13.2 miles long and about 100 yards wide.

Wisconsin also had a tornado spawned by the same storm system that struck Illinois. It was the first January tornado in Wisconsin since 1967. Two tornadoes formed in southeast Wisconsin as a stationary front helped produce a lot of moisture.

Why January Tornadoes?

If the weather is right, temperatures can rise across the contiguous 48 states in January. South winds and sunny skies are usually needed for such conditions to form ahead of colder temperatures coming from the north and west.

In the 2008 outbreak, tornado warnings and severe weather happened across portions of eight states. Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana and Oklahoma. Cities in several northern states such as New Jersey and New York ahead of the storm front moving through those areas. Cities that had severe weather also saw record high temperatures.

In 2010, a tornado passed over Huntsville, Ala. Southern states are more likely to see winter time tornadoes as temperatures are higher in places like Louisiana, Alabama and Florida. Sometimes warm winds and weather systems in the Gulf of Mexico and tropical Atlantic Ocean can blow up into the U.S. mainland and increase temperatures. Then colder air comes from Canada to cause a sudden temperature drop that can form tornadoes.

William Browning is a research librarian.

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Typhoon kills more than 436 in southern Philippines (Reuters)

CAGAYAN DE ORO, Philippines (Reuters) – More than 400 people were killed and an unknown number were missing after a typhoon struck the southern Philippines, causing flash floods and landslides and driving tens of thousands from their homes.

In a text message to Reuters, Gwendolyn Pang, secretary-general of the Philippine National Red Cross (PNRC), said the death toll of 436 was expected to rise.

"Our death toll was based on the actual number of bodies that were brought to funeral homes in the two cities that were the hardest hit by the typhoon," Pang said, adding it was difficult to estimate how many were still unaccounted for.

Typhoon Washi, with winds gusting up to 90 kmh (56 mph), barreled into the resource-rich island of Mindanao late on Friday, bringing heavy rain that also grounded some domestic flights and left wide areas without power.

Emergency workers, soldiers and police were recovering more bodies - most covered in mud - washed ashore in nearby towns.

Pang said nearly 360 bodies had been found in the cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan and about 50 in four other southern provinces. The government's official death toll stood only at 131 people and nearly 270 missing.

Another 21 people drowned on the central island of Negros, the PNRC said.

Hundreds were also unaccounted for, most of them from a coastal village in Iligan. Houses were swept into the sea by floodwaters while people were sleeping inside late on Friday.

The Philippines social welfare department said about 100,000 people were displaced and brought to nearly three dozen

shelters in Iligan and Cagayan de Oro.

"WE RAN FOR OUR LIVES"

Army spokesman Colonel Leopoldo Galon said search and rescue operations would continue along the shorelines in Misamis Oriental and Lanao del Norte provinces.

"I can't explain how these things happened, entire villages were swept to the sea by flash floods," Galon said.

"I have not seen anything like this before. This could be worse than Ondoy," he said, referring to a 2009 storm that inundated the capital, Manila, killing hundreds of people.

Television pictures showed bodies encased in mud, cars piled on top of each other and wrecked homes. Helicopters and boats searched the sea for survivors and victims.

"We ran for our lives when we heard a loud whistle blow and was followed by a big bang," Michael Mabaylan, 38, a carpenter, told Reuters. He said his wife and five children were all safe.

Aid worker Crislyn Felisilda cited concern about children who had became separated from their families or lost their parents. "Many children are looking for their loved ones... (and children were) crying and staring into space."

Rosal Agacac, a 40-year-old mother, was begging authorities to help find her two children after their shanty was swept to the sea. "Please President Noynoy, help me," she cried, holding a candle at a spot where their house stood before the floods, referring to President Benigno Aquino.

Aquino met with cabinet members and disaster officials to assess conditions on the main southern island and ordered a review of disaster plans to avoid a repeat of the tragedy. He is due to inspect typhoon-hit areas after Christmas.

Rescue boats pulled at least 15 people from the sea, said another army spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Randolph Cabangbang.

Iligan City Mayor Lawrence Cruz said many people were caught by surprise when water rose one meter (three feet) high in less

than an hour, forcing people onto roofs. "Most of them were already sleeping when floodwaters entered their homes. This is the worst flooding our city has experienced in years."

The national disaster agency said it could not estimate crop and property damage because emergency workers, including soldiers and police officers, were evacuating families and recovering casualties.

Six domestic flights run by Cebu Pacific were cancelled due to the rain and near-zero visibility in the southern and central

Philippines. Ferry services were also halted, stranding hundreds of people.

An average of 20 typhoons hit the Philippines every year.

(Writing by Manny Mogato)

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Monsoon flooding kills 16 in eastern India (AP)

BHUBANESHWAR, India – Heavy rains and flooding have killed at least 16 people in eastern India and left nearly 100,000 others homeless, an official said Monday.

Incessant rains have hit the coastal and western parts of Orissa state for 10 days and nearly 2,800 villages have been affected, said S.N. Patra, the minister in charge of disaster management.

The rain stopped in most areas by Sunday evening, but the region's main river, the Mahanadi, remained over the danger mark on Monday and about 800 villages were still cut off, Patra said.

He said the government has set up about 180 relief camps and army helicopters were dropping food and water packets for people stranded in remote villages.

The loss to crops and property is still being assessed, he said.

Patra said the deaths occurred over the last four days.

India's monsoon season, which runs from June through September, brings rains that are vital to agriculture but can also cause massive destruction.

Flooding, landslides and other rain-related events kill thousands of people each year.

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Flash flooding kills at least three in Pittsburgh (Reuters)

PITTSBURGH (Reuters) – Flash flooding killed at least three people in Pittsburgh on Friday when heavy rains submerged cars in flood water that was nine feet deep in places, authorities said.

The three victims, identified as a woman and two children, died after their vehicle was pinned against a tree on Washington Boulevard and they were unable to escape, Michael Huss, the city's public safety director, said in a press conference broadcast in part on local KDKA-TV.

"We have crews that are continuing to search," he said.

Huss said the water was more than nine feet deep in some areas along the road, which is near the banks of the Allegheny River. An elderly woman remains unaccounted for, he said.

Some 18 cars were stranded in the flooding and 11 people had to be rescued, according to local media reports.

Accuweather.com said rescue crews had used inflatable rafts to reach stranded drivers. Power was out to 8,400 customers.

Earlier, the National Weather Service had issued a flash flood watch for Allegheny County as storms pounded the area.

(Writing by Cynthia Johnston. Editing by Peter Bohan)

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Tropical Storm Emily kills 1 in Haiti, 3 in DR (AP)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – The tropical storm that brushed the southern coast of Hispaniola killed one person in Haiti and three in the Dominican Republic, but spared the Caribbean nations the severe damage many feared, officials said Friday.

Tropical Storm Emily threatened to soak more than 600,000 Haitians made homeless after last year's earthquake but the tempest merely skirted the southern coast before it stalled at sea and dissipated.

More than 100 people left their crudely built homes to find safer housing in churches, schools and other building as the storm moved west. There were scattered reports of flooded houses and crops.

"We are thrilled that there was no major damage," Marie Alta Jean-Baptiste, director of Haiti's Civil Protection Department, told The Associated Press.

There was some damage in the neighboring Dominican Republic, where 7,000 people were displaced by floods and three people died, Dominican authorities said.

The Emergency Operations Center said the bodies of two men, ages 19 and 20, were pulled from a river near the town of Higuey, 100 miles (160 kilometers) east of Santo Domingo. A 23-year-old man died after falling through a drain in Santo Domingo province.

Rain also triggered landslides that affected a dozen homes on the banks of the Ozama River, which separates the capital from the Santo Domingo province.

Juan Manuel Mendez, director of the Emergency Operations Center, said a broken bridge and floods had isolated more than 50 villages.

In Haiti, one person died. Government workers found a body at the bottom of a ravine in the southwestern coastal city of Les Cayes, said Joseph Edgard Celestin, an official with Haiti's Civil Protection Department.

One person was injured in the southeastern coastal village of Cayes-Jacmel after a tree fell.

Civil Protection worker Jean Renel said an undetermined number of farm fields and houses were flooded in two villages in the southeastern part of Haiti. He said government workers were shoveling mud from a thoroughfare in one of them, Saint-Louis du Sud.

Heavy rainfall also caused several dozen homes next to a river in the Artibonite Valley to flood.

On Friday, the biggest showers in Haiti passed over the southern peninsula but dropped only less than an inch of rain, said Michel Davison, international desk coordinator for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"It looks like you guys are going to catch a break," said Davison.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center reported Friday that the remnants of Emily had a 70 percent chance of reforming as a tropical storm during the next 48 hours as it approached southern Florida.

___

Associated Press writer Ezequiel Lopez in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, contributed to this report.

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Falling tree kills Wis. man in severe hail storm (AP)

KENOSHA, Wis. – A powerful storm system raced through the upper Midwest Thursday night, killing a Wisconsin man when a tree collapsed onto his motorcycle, pelting Chicago skyscrapers with golf ball-sized hail and packing winds so strong they spun a grounded military cargo plane.

Several injuries were reported in Kenosha, Wis., where winds between 70 and 80 mph downed or damaged hundreds of trees and knocked out power to some 22,000 homes and businesses by early Friday, authorities said.

The 31-year-old man who died was riding his motorcycle on a local road at 8:12 p.m. CDT when he was struck by the tree, according to a news release from the Kenosha County Sheriff's Department. He was later pronounced dead at a hospital.

Two other residents were injured when they touched live electrical wires, and a woman was treated for a broken hip after she was struck by debris from a shed, authorities said.

"We are continuing to assess the damage in the city," Kenosha Mayor Keith Bosman. "It may take several days to clean-up debris."

The storm raced down through Lake Michigan coastal communities, ducking further inland before reaching the Windy City and losing strength once it moved into Indiana, said David Beachler, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Chicago. He said a gauge on the beach in Waukegan Harbor, a Chicago suburb about 10 miles south of the Wisconsin border, registered a hurricane-strength wind gust of 94 mph.

David Mann, a manager at Batten International Airport in Racine, Wis., said a wind gauge there registered a gust of 82 mph and that the storm caused a C130 military plane on display to pivot 45-50 degrees.

As the storm moved southward into Chicago, it dumped heavy rain and hail the size of golf balls and even baseballs, said Casey Sullivan, a weather service meteorologist.

Lake County Emergency Management Agency coordinator Kent McKenzie said the storm felled trees into buildings and power lines, and that there were several reports of trees damaging recreational vehicles camped at Illinois Beach State Park, north of Waukegan. Emergency workers freed several people trapped by a tree in a vehicle at the park, but no one was hurt, McKenzie said.

It was hot in the area on Thursday, and temperatures were expected to reach the upper 90s on Friday.

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Storm kills 10 in India, 33 fishing boats missing (AFP)

KOLKATA (AFP) – Ten people died and 33 fishing boats went missing on Friday during monsoon storms in eastern India which flattened hundreds of homes and flooded the city of Kolkata, officials said.

Police said the deaths occurred in rain-related accidents across West Bengal, where 33 fishing trawlers and about 500 crew were also reported missing by a local fishing association.

Weather department official Gokul Chandra Debnath said the state capital Kolkata, where the downpour overwhelmed the inadequate and poorly maintained drainage system, recorded 10 centimetres (four inches) of rain on Friday.

"The city collapsed because we were not prepared for such a calamity at the beginning of the monsoon," Kolkata mayor Sovan Chatterjee said, adding an emergency response centre had been set up to help those stranded.

Senior police official Surojit Kar Purakayastha said at least 10 people were killed in the storms and heavy rains across the state.

Among those killed were four members of a family who died when a landslide flattened their home in mountainous Kurseong region and four others who were swept away after their boat sank in Kolkata's Hoogly river, he said.

Local fishermen's welfare association president Bijon Maity told AFP by telephone that 33 trawlers in the Bay of Bengal had gone missing during the afternoon.

"Each trawler has at least 16 fishermen," he said, meaning at least 528 men were unaccounted for.

During storms in West Bengal, many captains find themselves unable to return to port and take refuge with their boats and crews along the coast.

"We have urged the (state) chief minister Mamata Banerjee to take necessary steps to trace the missing trawlers," Maity said.

India has forecast a "normal" monsoon this year that could boost food production and ease high inflation.

The strength of the annual June-September downpour is vital to hundreds of millions of farmers and to economic growth in Asia's third-largest economy which gets 80 percent of its annual rainfall during the monsoon season.

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Storm kills Amish teen, power outages in Northeast (Reuters)

BOSTON (Reuters) – The Mid-Atlantic is expected to be battered by another round of severe weather over the weekend just as a previous series of storms and heat subside.

Damaging winds, hail and lightning were expected on Saturday during the late afternoon or evening as the threat of severe weather loomed in New York, Pennsylvania and south through Virginia, said AccuWeather.com senior meteorologist John Feernick.

The latest severe weather predictions come on the heels of Thursday's lightning storms that left thousands in the Northeast without power and killed an Amish teenager rushing to bring in hay before the rain struck.

Thunderstorms had rumbled through the region late Thursday, marked by dramatic and deadly lightning strikes.

Before the rain reached southeastern Pennsylvania, Levi Lantz, 13, was working his Amish family's farm in Christiana Borough when he was struck by lighting and killed, according to Eric Bieber, chief deputy coroner of Lancaster County.

Lantz was baling hay with his father when he was electrocuted by the lightning, Bieber said. Lantz's father was driving a team of horses about 30 feet away from his son and felt a slight tingling sensation from the electrical charge, he said.

"They were trying to get the hay in before the rain started," Bieber said.

Further west, in Tennessee, a second possible weather related death on Thursday was reported at the Bonnaroo music festival, which was gripped by stifling heat. The body of a 32-year-old woman from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania was found outside her tent at the festival and heat exhaustion may have played a role, authorities said.

Throughout the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, a line of severe thunderstorms on Thursday brought strong winds and hail to communities from Washington, D.C., to Maine, according to National Weather Service reports.

Wind, downpours and lightning strikes in Connecticut caused damage and more than 140,000 power outages at the peak, the state's emergency management agency reported.

Later on Friday, 42,000 customers remained without power in what was expected to be a multi-day outage, according to emergency management officials.

New York officials reported roughly 13,000 customers remained in the dark statewide on Friday at mid-day with the bulk of outages in the lower Hudson Valley. Power was expected to be restored fully by midnight on Saturday, officials said.

The intense weather ushered in more moderate temperatures after days of unseasonable heat.

Temperatures across the region were expected to remain warm in some spots, but Friday's weather "is going to be a lot more tolerable than the last two days," said John Koch, a National Weather Service meteorologist.

After the weekend storm system passes, cooler air was expected to bring some relief to the Northeast early next week, according to AccuWeather.com.

(Reporting by Lauren Keiper and Daniel Lovering; Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Greg McCune)

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Storm kills Amish teen in Pennsylvania, power out in Northeast (Reuters)

BOSTON (Reuters) – Thousands remained without power across the Northeast on Friday in the wake of severe lightning storms that killed an Amish teenager rushing to bring in hay before the rain struck.

Thunderstorms had rumbled through the region late Thursday, marked by dramatic and deadly lightning strikes.

Before the rain reached southeastern Pennsylvania, Levi Lantz, 13, was working his Amish family's farm in Christiana Borough when he was struck by lighting and killed, according to Eric Bieber, chief deputy coroner of Lancaster County.

Lantz was baling hay with his father when he was electrocuted by the lightning, Bieber said. Lantz's father was driving a team of horses about 30 feet away from his son and felt a slight tingling sensation from the electrical charge, he said.

"They were trying to get the hay in before the rain started," Bieber said.

Throughout the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, a line of severe thunderstorms brought strong winds and hail to communities from Washington, D.C., to Maine, according to National Weather Service reports.

Wind, downpours and lightning strikes in Connecticut caused damage and more than 140,000 power outages at the peak, the state's emergency management agency reported.

By early Friday, 62,000 customers remained without power in what was expected to be a multi-day outage, according to Connecticut Light & Power.

New York officials reported roughly 18,000 customers remained in the dark statewide on Friday morning with the bulk of outages in the lower Hudson Valley.

Local teams were managing clean-up efforts, said William Peat, spokesman for the office of emergency management in New York.

The intense weather ushered in more moderate temperatures after days of unseasonable heat.

Temperatures across the region were expected to remain warm in some spots, but Friday's weather "is going to be a lot more tolerable than the last two days," said John Koch, a National Weather Service meteorologist.

New York looked forward to temperatures in the mid 80s compared to normal readings in the upper 70s. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania was expected to reach the upper 80s while residents in Boston anticipated cooler weather in the low 70s.

(Reporting by Lauren Keiper and Daniel Lovering; Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Jerry Norton)

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