26th January - Today's News: Tornadoes & Record Rainfall Hit Queensland

5 tornadoes leave trail of destruction on the Queensland coast with rescues, inundations and wreckages across central Queensland as rainfall record go under and north NSW told to prepare for floods, wind as ex-Oswald continues causing problems.

Meanwhile, in Evesham we ended up with zero snowflakes and just 1.6mm of rain from last night's system, though other parts of the country did get a lot of snow:  mountain rescue teams called in to help motorists trapped in cars on M6 for eight hours after heavy snow  whilst in Wales, flooding hits west, snow hits north.   In Scotland, Arctic chill to thaw at weekend and across Britain, the big freeze is over, but heavy rain and thawing snow could bring floods to many more parts over the coming days. 

Arctic blast hits eastern USA with Canadians gripped by bone-chilling temperatures too

Floods displace 70,000 and kill 36 in Mozambique

Prediction of Asian summer monsoon and tropical storm activity close at hand

Is global warming less extreme than feared?  New research from Norway suggests likely temp rises will be less the currently predicted.  Having often questioned whether predictions took into account all the various anthropogenic and natural forcings (some of which are negative) I'm inclined to think that they may be right .... but it's still getting warmer.  Not colder!

And in Italy, earthquake hits near Bologna