This undated photograph, released by NASA November 9, 2006, shows a hurricane-like storm at Saturn's south pole. The colossal storm, with a well-developed eye, marks the first time a truly hurricane-like storm has been detected on a planet other than Earth, the images showed on Thursday. EDITORIAL USE ONLY (NASA/Handout/Reuters)

Colossal hurricane-like storm seen on Saturn

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A colossal, swirling storm with a well-developed eye is churning at Saturn's south pole, the first time a truly hurricane-like storm has been detected on a planet other than Earth, NASA images showed on Thursday.

The storm on the giant, ringed planet is about 5,000 miles wide, measuring roughly two thirds the diameter of Earth, with winds howling clockwise at 350 mph (550 kph).

Jupiter's Great Red Spot, which swirls counterclockwise, is far bigger, but is less like a hurricane because it lacks the typical eye and eye wall.

The images -- essentially a 14-frame movie -- were captured over a period of three hours on October 11 by the U.S. space agency's Cassini spacecraft as it passed about 210,000 miles from the planet as part of its exploration of Saturn and its moons.

Michael Flasar, an astrophysicist involved in the mission at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said the storm looks just like water swirling down the drain in a bath tub, only on a gigantic scale.

"We've never seen anything like this before," Flasar said in an interview. "It's a spectacular-looking storm."

Saturn, the second-biggest planet in the solar system with an equatorial diameter of 74,000 miles and the sixth from the sun, is about 746 million miles from Earth.

Its south pole storm is much bigger than Earth hurricanes. It has a well-developed eye ringed by towering clouds that soar 20-45 miles above those in the dark center, two to five times higher than clouds in our thunderstorms and hurricanes, NASA said.

A distinguishing feature of hurricanes on Earth are the eye-wall clouds that form when moist air flows inward across an ocean surface, rising vertically and releasing a heavy rain around a circular region of descending air that represents the eye. Scientists said it was unclear whether Saturn's storm was a water-driven system.

It differs from Earth hurricanes in part because it remains stuck at the pole rather than drifting as such storms do on this planet and because it did not form over a liquid water ocean, with Saturn being a gaseous planet, NASA said.

"It looks like a hurricane, but it doesn't behave like a hurricane," Andrew Ingersoll, a member of Cassini's imaging team at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, said in a statement. "Whatever it is, we're going to focus on the eye of this storm and find out why it's there."

Flasar said scientists have more work ahead to understand the Saturn storm.

"I'm hoping that as we puzzle over it, it will become even more exciting as we start to connect the dots in our brains. But right now, the wheels are a little creaky," Flasar said. "We're all arguing with each other about what it might or might not be."

Stormy weather prevails


Typhoon Chebi is forecast to hit the northeastern Philippines on Saturday, possibly as a Category 5 supertyphoon.

Typhoon Chebi slams into northeastern Philippines

MANILA (AP) — Typhoon Chebi intensified Saturday as it slammed the northeastern Philippines with powerful winds, ripping off roofs and cutting power lines.
Authorities urged residents to brace for possible floods and landslides as the second super typhoon in as many weeks roared through rice-growing provinces of northern Luzon island with maximum winds of 195 kilometers (121 miles) and gusts of up to 230 kph (143 mph).

It quickly picked up wind speed overnight from 120 kph (75 mph), the Philippine weather bureau reported.

Chebi made landfall in northeastern Aurora province early Saturday morning and began moving across the provinces of Quirino, Nueva Vizcaya, Nueva Ecija, Tarlac and Pangasinan. It was forecast to move out into the South China Sea later Saturday.

Nearly 30 northeastern provinces were placed under a storm alert because of rains, winds and rough sea waters.

"The winds are powerful and the flood waters are high. People have been awake since 3 a.m.," Department of Environment officer James Martinez said in an interview on Radio DZRH from Dilasag town in Aurora province.

He said local authorities were advising residents in low-lying areas to evacuate to higher ground.

Radio reports said cellphone signals and power lines were knocked down in the province and there was damage to houses, but there were no casualties.

Many of the areas had suffered damage last week when Typhoon Cimaron slammed the same region, leaving 15 people dead in flash flood and landslides. It came on the heels of Typhoon Xangsane, which left 230 people dead and missing in and around Manila in late September.

About 20 typhoons and tropical storms lash the country each year. Chebi, which means swallow in Korean, is the 17th this season.

Typhoon Muifa creating battering waves

What started Tuesday innocently enough as a moderate tropical storm has become a small, but potent, typhoon east of the Philippines. Typhoon Muifa (Moy-fa) became worthy of its prefix today when winds were estimated at near 105 mph. Muifa is at best meandering to the north while churning in the Philippine Sea just east of Manila. In fact, for all intents and purposes, the typhoon has stalled. Though forecast to move west over the islands, forward progression will be slow. Bad news for the island chain as flooding and mudslides will result from the copious amounts of rain expected to fall over the next 48 hours. There is no doubt that the large and powerful waves have been battering the eastern coast of the northern Philippines. The system is forecasted to weaken gradually over the next 5 days as it heads towards southern Vietnam.

Brazilian woman survives after being shot in head 6 times

SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) — A Brazilian woman who was shot six times in the head after an altercation with her ex-husband was out of the hospital and talking to the media on Saturday.

"I know this was a miracle," 21-year-old housewife Patricia Goncalves Pereira told Globo TV. "Now I just want to extract the bullets and live my life."

Pereira was shot Friday in the small city of Monte Claros, about 560 miles north of Sao Paulo, after quarreling with her former husband, who was reportedly upset because she refused to get back together with him. She was also shot once in the hand.

Doctors could not explain why the .32-caliber bullets did not penetrate Pereira's skull and didn't even need to be extracted immediately.

"I can't explain how something like this happened," surgeon Adriano Teixeira said, adding that the bullets were lodged under the woman's scalp.

The ex-husband was still at large.

Great Plains wilt and worry as drought eases elsewhere

DENVER — As much of the West recovers from several years of drought, severe dryness lingers on the Great Plains, playing havoc with agriculture, commerce and hydroelectricity production.
The effects are widely scattered in regional pockets from Texas to the Dakotas. Winter wheat in Kansas and northern Oklahoma is in jeopardy from record warmth, wind and lack of rain. Livestock herds in Wyoming and other cattle states have shrunk because rangeland is too parched to graze.

Electric rates, lake recreation and commercial barges are affected by lack of water in the Missouri River, whose headwaters areas in the Rockies have suffered years of drought.

In Texas, drought and heat even forced a Christmas tree farm to close this season.

"It's been super-dry," says Ron Dearman of 4D Farm near Weatherford, west of Fort Worth. "I've got all my Christmas trees on drip irrigation ... but I still couldn't get enough moisture on them. It was too hot this summer, 40-something days of 100 degrees."

One-third of the 500 seedlings Dearman planted this year died. He says the rest will be stunted when they reach normal harvest age.

Last summer was the second-warmest in the continental USA since temperature records were first kept in the 1890s. Although October was uncommonly cool, 2006 is on track to be the nation's third-warmest year on record.

Thunderstorms, snow days in Iowa, Minnesota

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- Heavy snow blanketed parts of Iowa and Minnesota on Friday, giving many schoolchildren a day off or at least a chance to play in the snow before a delayed school opening.

Northern Iowa got up to 9 inches of snow, while Mankato, in southern Minnesota, reported 7 inches. Severe thunderstorms in eastern Iowa produced dime- and nickel-sized hail.

In the northeastern Iowa town of Emmetsburg, the snowfall came along with thunder and lightning, in a phenomenon called thundersnow, said Craig Cogil, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Johnston.

"We checked in up there and they had three-and-a-half inches, and an hour later they had 7," he said.

The heavy snow was expected to begin breaking up by afternoon, Cogil said, but some schools closed for the day or opened late because of the weather.

In Emmetsburg, residents were still busy, said Connie Boone, manager of a Casey's General Store.

"People are just as active because now they have to get out and shovel," she said.

Storms in Illinois
Meanwhile, storms brought heavy rain, strong winds and lightning to northeastern Illinois, where a flooded viaduct was blamed for an accident that killed a Chicago bus driver.

The storms also caused long delays for travelers.

A lightning strike damaged the signal system along a commuter train line, stalling about 20 trains between Chicago and Auroro for up to two hours during rush hour, Metra spokeswoman Judy Pardonnet said.

And all flights at O'Hare and Midway airports were delayed and many were canceled, said Wendy Abrams, a spokeswoman for Chicago's Department of Aviation.