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...SYNOPSIS... A SIGNIFICANT SEVERE WEATHER OUTBREAK APPEARS INCREASINGLY LIKELY ACROSS PORTIONS OF THE UPPER MIDWEST/LOWER GREAT LAKES FROM THIS AFTERNOON THROUGH THIS EVENING. INTENSE STORM DEVELOPMENT IN A VERY UNSTABLE AIRMASS...COINCIDENT WITH A COMPACT AND INTENSIFYING SURFACE LOW SHOULD RESULT IN NUMEROUS DAMAGING WIND EVENTS AS WELL AS SCATTERED...POSSIBLY STRONG TORNADOES. ...ERN IA/NRN IL/NRN IND/NWRN OH AND ADJACENT AREAS OF EXTREME SRN WI AND SWRN LOWER MI...

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control released data Wednesday revealing that 20 million new sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are diagnosed each year nationwide, costing some $16 billion in taxpayer funds. Half of the 20 million new infections affect people ages 15 to 24 - who only make up a quarter of the population,l according to the statistics. Human papillomavirus (HPV) tops the list as the most common infection followed by chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, herpes, hepatitis B, HIV and trichomoniasis.

London (CNN) -- New information has emerged from an intelligence operation about the possibility of an attack being planned in or near London, with subway stations and airports of particular concern to officials, a British security source told CNN Thursday. CNN understands that the intelligence operation concerns a possible Mumbai-style attack, the source said. The action is not connected to terrorism arrests last month in Stoke, Cardiff and London, the source said.

AKRON, Ohio - Akron police said a store owner shot a suspect as he tried to break into his shop overnight. The owner of Pioneer Market on Pioneer Street said he was sleeping in the store at about 3 a.m. when he heard a knock at the front door and then the opening of a rear door. Police said the owner confronted the suspects with a shotgun and fired a shot. Several minutes later, officers received a call from Akron General Medical Center about a patient with a gunshot wound to the left arm. Johnny R. Rollyson, 19, of Beardsley...

It has been a busy week here with one of the twins being sick and then them having Spring break. That has equaled time not available to neither look at the weather nor provide blog posts but things are much quieter today. For the first time in a week, as I am typing this post I am seeing a bright, yellow ball in the sky. I believe it is the elusive sun. A slow progressing trough has kept much of the southeastern U.S. shrouded in low cloud cover which in turn has kept temperatures 5 to 10 degrees below normal....

System moving out of the Gulf of Mexico and through the Southeast today has already delivered a wide swath of wet snow accumulation through Alabama and into northern Georgia. Some of the higher terrain of northeast Alabama has seen 3” to 6” of accumulation. The highest totals received so far: Lookout Mtn-Chattanooga, TN (7”), Pisgah, AL (6”), Coker Creek, TN (6”), Collinsville, AL (5”), Mentone, AL (4”), Hayesville, NC (4”), Whitewell, TN (4”), SE Huntsville, AL (3”), Arab, AL (3”), Albertville, AL (3”) and Grant, AL (3”). This system will continue to track NNE along the Atlantic coast over the...

I have provided the Spring and Severe Weather Outlook in today's blog post. Also, I would like to thank those of you who have read my blog this year and commented. I realize some of you are having trouble reading the text due to the graphic background. I will be working to fix this issue and hope to make it easier on everyone's eyes soon. I did not realize the issue because it is not evident when I few it through firefox at the settings I have my browser set at but I took a look and saw the issue...

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain raised its international terrorism threat level to 'severe' -- its second highest level of terror alert -- from 'substantial' on Friday, Home Secretary (interior minister) Alan Johnson said. "The Joint Terrorism Analysis Center has today raised the threat to the UK from international terrorism from substantial to severe. This means that a terrorist attack is highly likely, but I should stress that there is no intelligence to suggest than an attack is imminent," he said in a statement. "JTAC keeps the threat level under constant review and makes its judgments based on a broad range of...

A nurse herself for many years, the 47-year-old Milliken has spent the last 38 days in medical care. Her boyfriend and family said she may have been struck down by what's called Guillain-Barre Syndrome -- which starts with pain and ends with paralysis. Milliken's family said they believe the H1N1 flu shot she received in the first week of November may be to blame for her suffering. "Right now, she's in a lot of pain, mostly in her extremities. A lot of nerve sensations such as burning in her legs is what she's feeling," said Milliken's daughter Michelle Mellett. The...

A vigorous storm system moving through the center of the nation has delivered feet of snow to Colorado including the Denver metro area and is also delivering strong to severe storms across portions of SE Oklahoma/NE Texas/Western AR/Western LA. As of 2 PM CT, 3 tornado watches were in effect.

A powerful early winter season storm is spinning up across the 4-corners with a surface low across southeast Colorado. The surface system will gradually lift north-northeastward through Saturday while the upper level support will be slowly track eastward into the lower Mississippi Valley. What does this mean?

Not a lot to say regarding the weather. It remains quiet in the tropics but don’t put your guard down just yet.

As the state’s shortage of primary care doctors grows, people are waiting longer for medical care, according to a new survey by the Massachusetts Medical Society. “The shortage is getting more severe,” said Dr. Mario Motta, the medical society’s president. The state’s health care dilemma can serve as a valuable lesson for a nation whose residents are locked in a frenzied debate about health care reform, he added.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Doctors are reporting a severe form of swine flu that goes straight to the lungs, causing severe illness in otherwise healthy young people and requiring expensive hospital treatment, the World Health Organisation said on Friday.

WASHINGTON -- An internal CIA report made public yesterday says the agency's heavily criticized interrogation techniques led to the 2003 arrest of a Columbus truck driver who pleaded guilty to providing assistance to al-Qaida. The 2004 report, released following an order by a federal judge, asserted that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, provided CIA interrogators with information that "led to the investigation and prosecution'' of Iyman Faris, a native of Pakistan who was living in Columbus. Faris, 39, is serving a 20-year sentence after admitting he had scouted the Brooklyn Bridge in 2002 as...

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA - November 25, 2008 (OWSweather.com) Severe thunderstorm threat possible. It's been months since Southern California has seen a good storm system move through. Lots have tried and many have failed. However one storm system managed to escape the grasp of the arctic jet stream and will make friends with the tropical moisture plume to the South to give us much needed rain. The rain will start this morning, increasing over the day and into the evening. The Ventura areas will likely see the rain overnight tonight into Wednesday morning as a plume of tropical moisture reaches the area....

It has been lightning and thunder since 7am.The Emerg radio is in action all day.I called my vendor to see if it was wise to put on the p.m. mist and O2 for KV and he brushed me off. So I called the local non emerg. Fire Dept and they said if your gut says no go with it.. Folks we are being hit with Lightning and thunder and no 1 elephant counts. The local FD said that they had a hit in one substation and all I could think was to say I CAN PRAY we have NO STRIKES..we...

A cloud-to-ground ligtning strike from a severe thunderstom hit a large gasoline storage tank at the Magellan Petroleum tank farm in Kansas City, igniting 2 million plus gallons of unleaded gasoline, rapidly growing into a huge inferno of flame belching over 200 feet in the air. Local authorities have elected to let the fire burn itself out, which is anticipated to take a day or more. The fire is presently contained to the burning tank. Authorites and company officials feel confident the fire poses no danger to other large storage tanks nearby. Video from local news helicopters shows tank walls...

THE NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER HAS ISSUED A TORNADO WATCH FOR PORTIONS OF DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA WESTERN AND CENTRAL MARYLAND SOUTH CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA NORTHERN AND CENTRAL VIRGINIA EASTERN WEST VIRGINIA INCLUDING THE PANHANDLE COASTAL WATERS EFFECTIVE THIS WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING FROM 1250 PM UNTIL 800 PM EDT. TORNADOES...HAIL TO 2 INCHES IN DIAMETER...THUNDERSTORM WIND GUSTS TO 70 MPH...AND DANGEROUS LIGHTNING ARE POSSIBLE IN THESE AREAS. THE TORNADO WATCH AREA IS APPROXIMATELY ALONG AND 95 STATUTE MILES NORTH AND SOUTH OF A LINE FROM 55 MILES NORTHWEST OF STAUNTON VIRGINIA TO 30 MILES NORTH NORTHEAST OF PATUXENT RIVER MARYLAND. FOR...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Winter tornadoes that ripped across parts of the American South this week were unusually lethal but not particularly rare, a .government meteorologist said on Wednesday as the death toll mounted. Tornado season in the United States generally starts in March and continues through the summer months but winter tornadoes have become an almost annual occurrence, according to Harold Brooks of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "While this is not a normal event, it's not an incredibly rare event," Brooks, based at the agency's National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma, said by telephone...