Torrents of water rushed through the streets of the Sierra Leone capital of Freetown on Monday, causing mudslides that killed hundreds and trapped hundreds more in their homes and vehicles, officials said. As many as 200 people were killed after heavy rains overnight deluged the city’s poor drainage system and created one of the most devastating floods Freetown has experienced.

Torrential rain battered Nepal on Sunday, causing widespread flooding and landslides and raising the death toll from three days of severe weather to 49 people, according to officials. The toll could go higher as three dozen people were reported missing. Another 17 were injured.

A report compiled by scientists around the world confirmed Thursday that 2016 was the hottest year since tracking began. The State of the Climate in 2016 report, led by the United States’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) with the help of scientists from 60 nations, found that “the major indicators of climate change continued to reflect trends consistent with a warming planet.”

Evidence is piling up that this year’s sizzling summer in central and southeastern Europe has decimated crops, drained rivers and hurt the animal world. As the drought’s costs become clearer, temperatures in Serbia, Romania, Hungary and Croatia were expected to reach 39 degrees Celsius (102 Fahrenheit) again on Thursday following a few days of less oppressive heat.

A lethal heat wave is plaguing parts of Europe, and it's so intense that meteorologists are calling it "Lucifer." The heat wave is fuelling wildfires, shutting down tourist attractions, and being blamed for causing heart attacks. But as if that isn't enough, Romanians also have to worry about Lucifer fueling wasp and bee attacks.

AT least two people have been killed on southern Japanese islands as a powerful typhoon accompanied by heavy rain and strong winds lashed the region, local media report. A 67-year-old man died after sustaining injuries in a fall on Yaku island, while an 84-year-old was found floating in a port on Tanegashima island, broadcaster NHK reported.

Well, uh, don't drive in Miami right now. Thanks to the remnants of yesterday's Tropical Storm Emily (which has since weakened to a depression), most of Miami Beach and a big chunk of downtown Miami sit under something close to a foot of water. Cars can't move, trees have fallen into roads, and a flash-flood warning has been issued for Miami Beach until 5:45 p.m.

A brutal heat wave is scorching the Northwest. Following previous punishing heat waves in the Southwest and East, folks in northern California and western portions of Oregon and Washington are enduring blistering temperatures, some of which are shattering records.

It’s peak hurricane season, but the nation’s worst weather disaster right now is raging on the High Plains. An intense drought has quickly gripped much of the Dakotas and parts of Montana this summer, catching farmers and ranchers off-guard. The multi-agency U.S. Drought Monitor recently upgraded the drought to “exceptional,” its highest severity level, matching the intensity of the California drought at its peak.

A search-and-rescue operation was underway Sunday after nine people, including at least two children, died and several others went missing in a flash flood along the Verde River in Arizona Saturday, according to the Gila County Sheriff’s office. A large group was at the river swimming Saturday afternoon when the flash flood came from above them, police said. Two people remain missing as of today. At least four people were rescued and airlifted to a hospital, police said.

Explanations for how ball lightning is formed are even more diverse than its physical characteristics.

Arctic winter warming events – winter days where temperatures peak above 14 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 10 degrees Celsius) – are a normal part of the climate over the ice-covered Arctic Ocean. But new research by an international team that includes NASA scientists finds these events are becoming more frequent and lasting longer than they did three decades ago. Because fall and winter is when Arctic sea ice grows and thickens, warmer winter air temperatures will further impede ice growth and expansion, accelerating the effects of global warming in the Arctic.

The victims were all from one Phoenix family, who had been celebrating a birthday alongside a popular swimming hole, unaware that summer thunderstorms had just dropped heavy rains upstream.

Apparently, weather forecasters weren't kidding about this being a rather hot week. The Shanghai weather bureau issued its first red alert for heat of the year today with temperatures hitting a record high of 40.9 degrees Celcius at around 2 p.m. in Xujiahui. That's the highest temperature ever recorded at the Xujiahui weather station, which was established all the way back in 1873. The previous high was 40.8 degrees, recorded during the sweltering summer of 2013.

Summer means a lot of things to a lot of people, but for any American maritime worker who sails through our oceans, the summer months can just as easily be called “hurricane season”. You don’t need us to tell you how dangerous hurricanes can be – dozens of lives are lost every year to these …

A city in southwest Iran posted the country’s hottest temperature ever recorded Thursday afternoon, and may have tied the world record for the most extreme high temperature. Etienne Kapikian, a forecaster at French meteorological agency MeteoFrance, posted to Twitter that the city of Ahvaz soared to “53.7°C” (128.7 degrees Fahrenheit). Kapikian said the temperature is a “new absolute national record of reliable Iranian heat” and that it was the hottest temperature ever recorded in June over mainland Asia.

A photo of a man in Alberta mowing a lawn with a tornado swirling behind him has been causing a bit of a storm on social media. Cecilia Wessels snapped the picture of her husband, Theunis, on Friday evening as the twister passed near their home in Three Hills. She says cutting the grass was on her husband's to-do list, and as he started the task, she went for a nap.

Planes have been grounded in Phoenix as life-threatening heat descends across the Southwest.

A weather system in the Gulf of Mexico has a 90 percent chance of becoming a tropical storm in the next day or two, threatening energy infrastructure as it advances toward Texas and Louisiana, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said on Tuesday.

Extreme heat across large tracts of the Northern Hemisphere raised fears for crops in China, fueled forest fires in Portugal and Russia's Far East, forced flight cancellations in the Southwest U.S., and melted tarmac on roads in Britain.

Communities and oil refining and production facilities from Texas to Florida braced on Tuesday for potential disruptions as Tropical Storm Cindy strengthened over the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, threatening to bring flash floods across parts of the northern Gulf Coast.

Killer heat due to global warming means much of the planet faces rising fatalities, a study shows. By 2100, almost half of people on the planet will be at risk of heat-related illness or death - even if emissions fall.

Malta's famous Azure Window rock arch has collapsed into the sea after heavy storms. Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said the news was "heartbreaking". A study in 2013 said that while erosion was inevitable, the structure was not in imminent danger of collapsing, the Times of Malta reports.

Tornadoes ripped through an East Texas county on Saturday evening, killing at least four people and injuring dozens of others, and authorities warned the number of casualties could rise.

After some of the most extreme flooding in the region in over 100 years, Missouri and its neighboring states await the next deluge, which threatens further damage. A slow-moving area of low pressure is predicted to dump up to four inches of new rain between Tuesday night and Thursday following the 6 to 12 inches that fell over the weekend.

After a bridge closure, people had to bushwhack a 1-mile trail through the woods to get their kids to school. This sounds like a dystopian action novel but it's everyday life for the people in Big Sur. Then over the weekend, the next disaster struck. More than a million tons of rock careened down a hillside onto Highway 1, burying a quarter-mile of the road in debris. As of Tuesday, authorities didn’t even know what it looked like from the ground because the hillside was still so unstable, no one had been able to approach it, the AP reported.

Ars technical director: "I, I, I... think we need to call 911."

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) recently announced world records for the highest death tolls from lightning, tropical cyclones, tornadoes and hailstorms in recorded history.

A deadly storm lashed Moscow this week while a cyclone wreaked havoc in Myanmar and Bangladesh.

The last week of May 2017 and first week of June brought one the most extraordinary heatwaves in world history to Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

The notoriously tough insects are just as dangerous when they're wet as they are dry, according to Alabama officials.

A massive wildfire burning out of control in the foothills of central California has left at least 150 homes in ruins and damaged another 75, officials said on Saturday, warning that more residents may be forced to flee the advancing flames. The so-called Erskine fire, which broke out on Thursday some 40 miles (64 km) northeast of Bakersfield in Kern County, has already claimed at least two lives, sent three firefighters to the hospital and forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes.

Climate scientists this week expressed alarm after “unprecedented” data showed the Northern Hemisphere Jet Stream crossing the Equator.

Over 100 years after the most powerful explosion in documented history, researchers are still trying to figure out exactly what happened. By Melissa Hogenboom.