At least 30 people have died and 100 been injured in flooding in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, officials have said.

Heavy rain caused waterways to burst their banks, washing away roads and bridges and knocking down power lines.

Intense rainfall added to the damage from other heavy rain in recent months, causing an estimated 80 million dollars in damage in Costa Rica, National Emergency Commission boss Daniel Gallardo said Wednesday.

Three children and a woman were killed when their boat capsized in Honduras, officials said Sunday, raising to 21 the death toll from days of torrential rains that have driven thousands from their homes across Central America.

At least 88 people have died in rain-related accidents in eastern India since the start of September with tens of thousands stranded in state-run relief camps, officials said.

Rain-related accidents in the state of West Bengal have claimed 48 lives there in recent days, a minister told AFP.

At least 69 people have died in rain-related accidents in eastern India since the start of September with tens of thousands stranded in state-run relief camps, officials said on Friday.

The situation in eastern Orissa state was grim with 40 dead, Manmohan Samal, minister for revenue and disaster management in the state, told AFP.

Further north in neighbouring West Bengal, heavy rains and related accidents claimed 29 lives with more than 200,000 homes destroyed, officials said.

Flooding across a swathe of Africa now affects 22 countries, including Ethiopia, Niger and Sudan where the situation has worsened in recent days, the United Nations said Monday.

More than 800,000 people are now affected by torrential rains in those three countries alone, compared to around 700,000 recorded last week, according to data from the UN humanitarian coordination office.

Heavy rains spawned by a typhoon have destroyed or inundated more than 22,000 houses and buildings across North Korea, hampering efforts to recover from earlier floods, state media said Monday.

Rain storms triggered by Typhoon Wipha from Tuesday to Friday last week caused heavy losses in various sectors of the economy, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

About 14,000 houses, 8,000 public buildings and 300 production buildings were destroyed or damaged and deluged, while more than 109,000 hectares (270,000 acres) of farm land were flooded, it said.

Four people died and four were still missing Wednesday, the day after the heaviest rains in 30 years hit Slovenia's northwest, causing flooding and mudslides, state radio said.

Observations and climate model results confirm that human-induced warming of the planet is having a pronounced effect on the atmosphere's total moisture content. Those are the findings of a new study appearing in the Sept. 17 online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "When you heat the planet, you increase the ability of the atmosphere to hold moisture," said Benjamin Santer, lead author from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Program for Climate Modeling and Intercomparison.

Severe flooding across east, central and west Africa has destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes, killing at least 250 people, and washing away much of the continent's most fertile farmland. More rain is expected and aid agencies are warning that the need for food, shelter and medicine in the affected regions is urgent.

By last night at least 15 countries across Africa were thought to be affected by the flooding, from Senegal in the west to Kenya in the east. West Africa has suffered most with deaths recorded in Burkina Faso, Togo, Mali and Niger.

Nearly 13.5 million people have been marooned or displaced by floods in India and Bangladesh, officials said on Saturday.

The flooding in South Asia caused by the June-to-September monsoon has been described as the worst in decades, with more than 2,200 people killed by floods and rains in India since it started.

In neighbouring Bangladesh, the number of people killed by flooding topped 1,000 on Saturday, the government said.

Several of Africa's poorest countries are in dire need of assistance due to severe floods that have killed more than 200 people and affected a million in recent weeks, officials warned Friday.

The latest victims were reported in Rwanda, where officials from the northern region said floods killed 15 people and destroyed more than 500 homes since Wednesday.

In Sudan, the worst floods in living memory have left 64 people dead and displaced and affected several hundred thousand, mainly in the troubled south, according to the United Nations.

A cholera epidemic spread by floods has also killed at least 49 Sudanese in recent weeks, according to the World Health Organisation.

The torrential rains and flash flooding that have ravaged much of the country since midsummer killed 119 people and forced tens of thousands from their homes, officials said Wednesday.

As the rainy season comes to an end, the government appealed to the international community for help in addressing the estimated $150 million cost of aiding the homeless.

"Since the beginning of July 2007, torrential rains and overflowing rivers have been causing the worst floods and flash floods in the living memory of Sudan," the government said in a statement issued by its embassy in Kenya.

In addition, the government estimated that 36,000 livestock and 104,000 acres of crops destroyed by the massive flooding in the east, south and center of the country.

Drought could wipe out Australia's wheat crop despite expectations that the country's worst dry spell for a century was easing, Trade Minister Warren Truss warned Tuesday.

"In many parts of Australia there has been some relief and a quite large wheat crop was planted," he told reporters on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific summit in Sydney.

"It's disappointing to hear reports now that the crop is deteriorating especially in New South Wales and parts of Victoria."

The United Nations says recent flooding in West Africa has affected more than 130,000 people.

A statement from the U.N. Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says the worst-affected countries are Mali, Mauritania and Burkina Faso. Gambia, Senegal, Liberia and Niger are also feeling the effects of torrential rains that began in July.

It is far too soon for a full statistical picture of summer 2007 to emerge, and the evidence of what has happened to wildlife is largely anecdotal – but the anecdotes are all pointing in the same direction.

Take birds, and one of Britain's rarest species, the bittern – the brown, long-legged relative of the grey heron which nests in the reedbeds of East Anglia.

Bitterns are counted by the number of males that are "booming" – making the low, far-carrying call that attracts the female. Within the past 20 years there were as few as 11 booming males in all of the country, but strenuous conservation efforts had this spring brought that up to more than 50.

Then disaster struck. After 2007's wonderfully warm April, cold and rain swept in during the early May Bank Holiday weekend. At Minsmere, the flagship reserve of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in Suffolk, five bittern nests were washed away, and the young birds died in the low temperatures. "It was cold and wet right across the bittern's breeding range," said Mark Avery, the RSPB's director of conservation. "One wet cold weekend dealt a devastating blow to one of Britain's rarest birds."

A State Department spokesman late Friday said that the United States was ready to talk to North Korea about a "significant" food aid package for victims of the recent devastating floods.

Widespread floods in August caused huge crop losses in a nation already unable to feed its people.

Washington "is prepared to engage with North Korean officials on arrangements for a significant food aid package, including appropriate monitoring procedures," deputy State Department spokesman Tom Casey said in a statement.

Torrential rain across the UK is likely to mean the summer of 2007 will have been the wettest since records began in 1914, Met Office figures suggest.

Provisional tallies show a total of 358.5mm (14.114in) of rain fell on the UK, narrowly beating the previous 1956 record of 358.4mm (14.110in).

However, more data has to be collected, which may push 2007 into second place.

Wheat futures in Chicago climbed to a record, heading for the biggest monthly gain in 34 years, as demand from importers including South Korea and India reduced global inventories.

Prices for the grain have doubled in the past year as adverse weather in Ukraine, Canada, Europe and Australia damaged crops. Global stockpiles will fall to the lowest in 26 years by May 31, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Buyers in Egypt, the world's biggest importer after Brazil, and Taiwan have also sought the grain, used for animal feed and in foods such as bread, biscuits and noodles.

``This is abnormal,'' said Park Yang Jin, business department manager at Daehan Flour Mills Co., Korea's largest milling wheat importer. ``I hope to see a correction soon.''

Wheat for December delivery rose as much as 23.25 cents, or 3 percent, to $8.0775 a bushel in electronic trading on the Chicago Board of Trade. It was at $8.0525 as of 7:10 a.m. local time. The commodity has gained 28 percent this month, the most since August 1973.

The summer of 2007 is probably the wettest on record experienced by Britain since records began in 1914, according to the Met office.

Preliminary figures suggest the country has so far received 358.5mm of rain, which is just above the 358.4mm of rain received in 1956. But the Met Office said that more data needed to be tallied and that this might push the year 2007 into second place.

Severe flood damage has in two months affected more than 65,000 people in west Africa, making thousands homeless and wrecking infrastructure, the Red Cross and Red Crescent organisations said Friday.

Heavy rain and "unprecedented floods" from Senegal to Nigeria have caused the "loss of human lives and devastated crop zones, plunging some populations into total penury," the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said.

Lower temperatures and lighter winds helped bring fires around the Mediterranean under control on Friday but six Croatian firefighters were found dead and in Greece authorities feared a new heatwave.

The Croatian firefighters, who included a 17 year-old and two 19 year-olds, died on Thursday after being cut off while battling a wildfire in a national park on the Adriatic island of Kornat, the fire brigade said.

NAIROBI, 29 August 2007 (IRIN) - Floods have destroyed at least 4,000 hectares of farmland in southern Somalia's Middle Shabelle region, affecting 12,000 people, local officials said.

The damage occurred around the town of Jowhar, the regional capital, where the Shabelle River burst its banks last week.

"Some of the villagers were about to harvest [crops] when the river broke its banks," Usman Haji Abdullahi Aqil, Jowhar district commissioner, told IRIN on 29 August. "Some 2,050 families [about 12,000 people] were affected and lost their crops."

Global warming will make severe thunderstorms and tornadoes a more common feature of U.S. weather, NASA scientists said today.

Climate models have previously shown that Earth will see more heavy rainstorms as the atmosphere warms, but a new climate model developed by NASA researchers is the first to show the difference in strength between storms that occur over land and those over the ocean and how storms strengths will change in general.

The models don't directly simulate thunderstorms and lightning, but look for conditions that are ripe for severe storms to form.

The European Space Agency said satellite data suggested Greece has suffered more wildfires this month than European nations have during the last decade.

The ESA said its ERS-2 and Envisat satellites continuously survey fires burning across the Earth's surface with onboard sensors -- the Along Track Scanning Radiometer, or ATSR, and the Advanced Along Track Scanning Radiometer.

The sensors measure thermal infrared radiation across Earth's land surfaces. Temperatures exceeding about 95 degrees Fahrenheit at night are classed as burning fires. Data gathered through Monday show Greece has had four times the number of fires this August as compared with its July and August 1998 records.

The report says that Ireland's average annual temperature has increased by 0.7 degrees centigrade between 1890 and 2004.

Six of the ten warmest years have occurred since 1990.

The analysis also found also found the west, southwest and north coastal regions are becoming gradually wetter as a result of more frequent and persistent rainfall.

"The report is further confirmation that the impacts of climate change are already happening in Ireland and are accelerating," Gormley said.

"This report confirms that annual rainfall has increased in the north and west. Not only is it raining more frequently, but the volume and intensity of rainfall is increasing.

"These conclusions will be self-evident to anybody who has holidayed at home this summer.

Global warming may carry a higher risk of flooding than previously thought, according to a study released on Wednesday by the British science journal Nature.

It says efforts to calculate flooding risk from climate change do not take into account the effect that carbon dioxide (CO2) -- the principal greenhouse gas -- has on vegetation.

Floods across Sudan have killed 101 people, spread disease and destroyed livelihoods by wiping out agricultural crops, officials said on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, the United Nations appealed for $20 million to provide clean water, food and shelter to more than 3 million people in what Sudanese officials have called the worst floods in living memory.

"One hundred and one have died, and 278 were injured in the floods," Awad Widatallah Hussein, an official in the government's emergency response team, told Reuters.

The flooding killed more than 36,000 livestock, he said.

The floods have made at least 200,000 people homeless, and destroyed more than 42,000 hectares of crops, the U.N. humanitarian aid agency (OCHA) said in a statement.

In south Sudan, which recently emerged from decades of civil war, witnesses said the situation was worsening.

More than a 250,000 residents of Liberia's capital, Monrovia, have been overwhelmed by water from torrential rains and flooding from the nearby St. Paul River. The rains have left them without safe drinking water for three days. Hundreds have also been made homeless. Officials say they are working to restore drinking water and provide help to the displaced residents. Naomi Schwarz has more from Dakar with additional reporting by Prince Collins in Monrovia.

Flood and drought have killed more than 1,100 people in China this year and caused 10 billion dollars in economic losses, the government said Tuesday.

The death toll from flooding and drought has climbed to 1,138, with another 210 people missing, Vice Minister of Water Resources E Jingping told a press conference.

More than 139 million people have been affected by the severe rains, flooding and drought, he said, adding that most of the problems occurred during the peak rainy season of July and August.

As of August 21, 5.32 million hectares (13.1 million acres) of crops had been damaged while 883,000 houses had collapsed, causing a direct economic loss of 10 billion dollars, according to ministry statistics.

Water Resources Minister Chen Lei said many Chinese cities had suffered from "unprecedented" rain this year.

U.S. scientists say rainfall over tropical oceans has been on the rise over the past three decades.

A 27-year-long global record of rainfall assembled from satellite and ground-based instruments shows the rainiest years in the tropics between 1979 and 2005 were mainly since 2001 researchers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., said in a news release Monday.

The rainiest year was 2005.

"When we look at the whole planet over almost three decades, the total amount of rain falling has changed very little. But in the tropics, where nearly two-thirds of all rain falls, there has been an increase of 5 percent," said lead author Guojun Gu.

Co-author Robert F. Adler said a warming climate is the most plausible cause of the observed trend.

NASA said climate scientists have predicted a warming trend in the earth's atmosphere and surface temperatures would increase the evaporation of water from the ocean and land and allow air to hold more moisture.

The study is published in the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate.

This is a U-Tube clip shot yesterday near Olympia, Greece

When viewing this clip, you will be seeing one of the predictions made 25 years ago about Climate Change.
It's a term that fire fighters use, it's called "Extreme Fire Behavior". It makes no difference what the ignition sources are, when conditions reach those in Greece this year, and at many other locations. Things are going to burn, and burn violently. A fire in Utah this year wasn't caused by man, and it was burning 100,000 acres a day at one point.

Here's some quotes from fire fighters here in America this season :

The Words of Fire Fighters

The Jocko Lakes Fire west of Seeley Lake blew up Saturday afternoon, displaying "tremendous fire activity," fire information officer Pat Cross said, "activity firefighters haven't seen before in this part of the world."

Athens reached 104 the day before this latest wave of fires. This was the third heat wave to hit Greece this summer ...... The day before the latest round of fires to sweep Greece arrived :

The temperature reached 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in Athens yesterday, making it one of the hottest days of the summer. Meteorologists said yesterday that it was the first time that three heat waves had been recorded in a single summer.

The forecast for Athens is for 95 degrees all week.

Meanwhile back home :
BOISE, Idaho -- Firefighters sprayed water with snowmaking machines to save a $12 million log ski lodge from a wildfire that has forced the evacuation of more than 1,000 homes, officials said Monday.

The death toll from floods triggered by heavy monsoon rains and snow melt in South Asia since June approached 3,200 Monday as some rivers in India continued to overflow, the government said.

In the massive flood plain of the eastern Indian state of Bihar -- one of the worst-hit areas -- the death toll reached nearly 500 with 20 million people affected, the government's disaster management office said on its website.

More than 800,000 people were still housed in government shelters and thousands of boats were being used to rescue people, the office said.

The Ganges and other major rivers that run through Bihar continued to surge above the danger mark, the Press Trust of India reported.

At least 1,400 villagers have been stranded in northern Romania amid heavy rains that caused rivers to overflow, killing a 19-year-old man.

The 17th-Century Sambata de Sus monastery was evacuated in the floods, which also cut power to 130 villages in the north and east of the country.

Six of Romania's 41 counties have been affected, with authorities warning that seven more counties were in danger.

The rain comes after three days of high temperatures of up to 40C.

Two weeks back, Erin can be seen coming up from the Gulf.
Most of the large red field is above 8 inches, the area covered is huge.

Precp. Page at NWS

Northeastern Illinois has experienced record rainfall for the month of August since regional records began in 1895.

As of Friday morning, rainfall for northeastern Illinois, including counties from Boone to LaSalle and eastward, averaged 11.32 inches, or 8.1 inches above normal. The previous record was set in 1987 at 11.02 inches.

Totals for June-August so far in this area averaged 20.02 inches, or 8.91 inches above normal. That beats the 1972 record of 19.26 inches.

Source: Illinois State Water Survey, a division of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

Lake Rathbun, an official weather reporting site, measured 12.34 inches of rain for the 24 hours ending at 7 a.m. Friday. That represents that the fifth-highest one-day rain total ever reported in Iowa, Hillaker said.

Other 24-hour rainfall totals as of Friday morning included:

Records for Aug. 20 were set in Indianapolis, Fort Wayne and South Bend.

The National Weather Service said 3.4 inches of rain fell in Fort Wayne Monday, breaking the old record of 1.51 set in 1926.

In Indianapolis, 2.22 inches of rain fell, breaking the old record for the day of 1.63 inches set in 1924.

In South Bend, 1.43 inches fell Monday, breaking the old record of 1.05 set in 1951.

Senior forecaster Jeff Callaghan said the current low pressure system over south-east Queensland was a freak event, not seen since at this time of year the 1800s.

Such events usually occurred in late autumn or early winter, he said.

"They are very rare in August and the last one we can find was probably in the 1880s," Mr Callaghan told ABC radio.

A new rainfall record was set at Rainbow Beach, near Gympie, where 713mm fell in the 24 hours to 9am (AEST) on Friday.

Weather bureau climate records meteorologist Claire Webb said the "amazing" rainfall was more than three times the previous high for the whole of August of 216mm, set in 1998.

At nearby Mt Bilewilam, north of Noosa, 689mm fell in the same period to 9am, and at Coops Corner 706mm was recorded.

North Korea reported Saturday that at least 600 people are dead or missing following devastating floods that swept the country causing huge damage to all sectors of the economy.

Official figures from the hardline communist state, quoted by relief agencies, earlier spoke of about 300 dead or missing.

But torrential rain, strong winds and landslides have doubled the total.

At least 600 are dead or missing and thousands injured, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, citing figures from the Central Statistics Bureau.

The agency, in its starkest assessment so far of the damage, said downpours earlier this month "caused huge material losses to the (country), creating unprecedented difficulties in people's living and economic construction."

More bad news out of Greece, the fires are breaking out again with a vengeance 17 dead so far :

17 die in Greek wildfires; outside help sought
Massive blazes burn out of control; several villages evacuated

The heat in the northern Mediterranean is entering it's 3rd month.

But there is this mind blowing number out of Australia tonight :

Freak rainfall smashes records

In a 24 hour period, it rained 28 inches in Australia. This is not a Tropical Cyclone produced rain event.
I just seeded some reports on new rainfall records coming out of Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, and Ohio.

All over the world, the clouds continue to produce these mind blowing amounts of water, Ohio's not alone.
It rained 17 inches in North Korea a few weeks ago, and Pyongyang says 437,000 affected by North Korean floods

Weather officials say the rains that flooded southeastern Minnesota last weekend set a state record for rainfall during a 24-hour period.

Weather watchers thought the record had been set earlier -- but now it's official.
And the old record was smashed by more than four inches.

The National Weather Service gauge in Germain Davison's farmyard a mile south of Hokah had 15-point-one inches in it when he measured it at 8 a-m Sunday.
The previous record, set July 22nd, 1972, at Fort Ripley, was 10-point-84 inches.

It took a while to get the record approved. The measurement has to come from someone in the Weather Service's network. The observer's equipment must be checked by Weather Service personnel, and the nomination has to be forwarded to the Extreme Records Committee of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for a vote.
In this case, the vote was unanimous.

The heavy thunderstorms that rumbled across southern Iowa Thursday night and this morning helped break an August record for Iowa precipitation that covers 135 years of statewide weather reports.

As of 7 a.m. today, Iowa has had an average of 8.62 inches of statewide average rainfall, breaking the old mark of 8.24 inches set in 1993, state records show. The all-time mark for rainfall in any month in Iowa is 10.5 inches, set in the historic flood month of July 1993.

"We had some incredible rain in southern Iowa last night. It was the biggest that we had yet out of this episode" of heavy Iowa rainfall over the past week, State Climatologist Harry Hillaker said today.

South-East Queensland's Rainbow Beach, near where an Indonesian sailing ship has grounded on the beach in heavy weather, has set a new rainfall record.

Weather bureau climate records meteorologist Claire Webb said 713mm fell there in the 24 hours to 9am today.

This was more than three times the previous total of 216mm for the whole month of August set in 1998, Ms Webb said.

"It's amazing," she said.

"There certainly is some flooding up there."

At nearby Mt Bilewilam, north of Noosa, 689mm fell in the same period to 9am today and at Coops Corner, 706mm was recorded.

At Tewantin, near Noosa, 310mm fell to 9am today, more than four times the previous record daily total of 72.2mm set on August 19, 1989.

Floods in North Korea in recent weeks have affected 437,000 people and damaged more than one-fifth of the country's rice crop, according to official North Korean estimates, the UN's food relief agency said Friday

"According to figures from the North Korean agriculture ministry, 223,381 hectares of rice, corn, and soja have been damaged, or more than 20 percent of rice crops, and 15 percent of corn fields," said World Food Programme spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume.

"We've had persistent, ongoing, relentless precipitation pretty much all year," Murphy told AFP.

"It's our wettest year on record so far... dating back to 1895."

Meanwhile, a crippling heat wave brought death and drought to the south eastern states of Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama.

Thirteen deaths were reported in Memphis, Tennessee and a dozen were reported in Alabama, officials said.

"These are a hundred year-plus records that are being shattered," Murphy said.

One such record was in Athens, Georgia which has had 13 days this month with temperatures at or above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, compared to an average of one day a year in August.

"That's a tremendous climatologically extreme event," Murphy said.

Birmingham, Alabama broke records with 10 consecutive days of temperatures at or above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius), up from the previous record of eight days in the deadly heat wave of 1980.

Drought conditions are so severe that the town of Franklin has begun shutting off water service to homes which violate water restrictions and is considering banning restaurants from serving water to customers who don't specifically ask for it, the Tennessean newspaper reported.

"Once we got here, everybody asked us to rescue more people," he said.

The Blanchard River was 7 feet above flood stage Wednesday at Findlay, the highest since a 1913 flood, and could rise another half-foot or more, the National Weather Service said.

The rain subsided by mid-afternoon, and the National Weather Service issued a heat advisory for much of the state, with temperatures expected to hit the upper 90s.

In Bucyrus, 40 miles to the southeast, nearly 9 inches of rain had fallen since Monday and at least 200 people were still out of their homes, the Crawford County Department of Emergency Management said.

"Reality is starting to set in about just how much damage there is in some of the flooded areas," said Tim Flock, director of the agency.

Gov. Ted Strickland declared states of emergency in nine counties in northwest and north-central Ohio, including Crawford County and Findlay's Hancock County.

The heavy rains that caused the severe flooding in southeastern Minnesota may have set a new record.

The National Weather Service says one measurement for the 24-hour total from Saturday to Sunday was 15-point-one inches in Houston County. If the State Climate Extremes Committee approves that value, it will be a new 24-hour rainfall record for Minnesota.

"It's not uncommon for the remains of a tropical system or the moisture from one of those storms to have some impact in Oklahoma," said Rick Smith, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service.

"But certainly, to see what we saw on satellite, where the system reorganized and had the look of a very well-organized system like you'd see over the Atlantic or the gulf, that's really rare," he said.

The storm system hardly resembled what a tropical storm, or even a hurricane, is supposed to look like three days and 450 miles after landfall.

"If you removed the map and took that satellite image and put it out in the Gulf of Mexico somewhere, you couldn't tell the difference from a tropical storm," Smith said.

Deadly thunderstorms continued to pound the US midwest Monday as the toll from mudslides and rushing floodwaters rose amid dramatic rescues of those trapped on roofs and in cars and frantic searches for survivors.

At least a dozen people were killed in Oklahoma and Minnesota and five were missing Monday after two strong storm systems moved through the American heartland, wiping away roads and bridges and causing the evacuation of several towns.

"You can't believe the washouts and the mudslides," said Shirley Van Gundy, 73, who lives in Houston, Minnesota a town of about 1,000 residents that was evacuated late Sunday afternoon.

The Red Cross Monday launched a global appeal for 5.5 million dollars (four million euros) to aid 3.7 million people hit by massive floods in North Korea.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies said in a statement that medical supplies and infrastructure were severely damaged by major flooding across five provinces and the health situation was worsening.

"We have at least 89,000 people left completely homeless after this disaster and we are working hard to respond to their needs," said Jaap Timmer, head of the Federation's delegation in North Korea.

Two screen shots this morning from the NWS Precipitation Analysis Page.

Heavy rains continued to wreak havoc in East Africa Saturday, as floods that have already displaced hundreds of thousands heightened fears of food shortages and disease outbreaks across the region.

In Kampala, Uganda's minister for relief, disaster preparedness and refugees, Musa Ecweru, said high waters had submerged entire villages and destroyed many farms in the east of the country.

"Many people have sought refuge in churches and raised grounds, while others have left the affected areas to live with relatives in other places and food crops in gardens have been destroyed," Ecweru told reporters.

The minister estimated the number of people displaced by the floods to be around 150,000.

"Cholera cases have been reported and we are working with the health ministry to mitigate the problems," he added.

Hurricane Dean roared into the eastern Caribbean on Friday, tearing away roofs, flooding streets and causing at least three deaths on small islands as the powerful storm headed on a collision course with Jamaica and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.

By mid-evening, the Atlantic season's first hurricane had strengthened into a Category 4 storm with sustained winds of 135 mph after crossing over the warm waters of the Caribbean and forecasters warned it could grow into a monster tempest with 150 mph winds before steering next week into the Gulf of Mexico, with its 4,000 oil and gas platforms.

I watched Sepat the last 2 days Here .......this thing spun-up fast. Last wind speeds were :

MAX SUSTAINED WINDS - 130 KT, GUSTS 160 KT ( 149 and 184 mph )
37 ft. waves

If you're going to China to inspect your lead paint toy factory, take your umbrella, and your kayak.
Here's the Joint Typhoon Warning Center
Third storm in a week for southern China.

Here's a great site for the Atlantic basin. Lots of visual info. on Atlantic storms. Storm Track

"According to the preliminary information available from different parts of the country as of August 12, the torrential rain left hundreds of persons dead or missing and destroyed more than 30,000 houses for over 63,300 families, or rendered them inundated," KCNA said.

"It also left tens of thousands of hectares (acres) of farmland inundated, buried under silt and washed away."

At least 800 public buildings, more than 540 bridges and sections of railway were destroyed in the heavy rain, the news agency said.

The southern provinces of Kangwon and North Hwanghae which border South Korea and South Hamgyong in the east were among the worst hit with thousands of families left homeless after their houses were inundated.

Persistent heavy rains in China have taken at least 14 more lives, state media reported Monday, as meteorologists warned torrential rains would continue pounding various parts of the country.

Eight people were killed and one left missing by flash floods following downpours that lasted more than ten hours in southwest China's Yunnan Province, Xinhua news agency said.

The rains also inundated large areas of cropland and damaged roads and houses in Yuanjiang county, which is occupied by indigenous ethnic minorities, local government officials were quoted as saying.

At least 43 people have been killed and several others are missing after floods in storm-hit central Vietnam.

Soldiers were helping to rush emergency supplies to some of the 200,000 people whose homes have been swept away or damaged by the flood waters.

The region is braced for further bad weather as tropical storm Pabuk heads across the South China Sea to China.

Torrential rains which lashed India's capital on Thursday forced the shutdown of official government websites for most of the day.

At the National Informatics Centre (NIC), which hosts the servers of the dozen or more portals, water seeped into generator sets and equipment, prompting the closures of sites having the domain address of "nic.in".