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                        Severe Weather Batters Americas

   by Lou Lorscheider

   Violent weekend weather battered large swaths of the southern and
   central United States, with tornadoes killing at least 11 people in
   Texas as other areas of the country braced for potentially crippling
   winter storms and flash flooding.

   One of several tornadoes that struck in and near the city of Dallas
   late Saturday carried winds of more than 320 kilometers an hour,
   leaving at least eight people dead. Three others died nearby, as a
   residential building in a northern suburb was destroyed and vehicles
   were blown from a highway overpass.

   Authorities say scores of others were injured in the region, just days
   after tornadoes killed at least 18 people in the nearby states of
   Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee.

   ''
   As recovery efforts expanded Sunday, forecasters issued severe weather
   advisories for large parts of the southern and central United States,
   including blizzard warnings for parts of New Mexico, northern Texas,
   Oklahoma and Kansas.

   New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez placed her entire jurisdiction
   under a state of emergency, as residents braced for as much as 60
   centimeters of snow.

   Additionally, flash flood warnings extended from Texas and New Mexico
   to the midwestern state of Indiana.

   California fires

   In California, more than 600 firefighters battled a sprawling brush
   fire that has burned about 500 hectares in a state that has faced
   severe drought conditions for the past four years.  Officials say the
   fire north of Los Angeles is now 60 percent contained.

   ''
   Elsewhere, extreme weather continued to grip much of the eastern United
   States Sunday, with unseasonably mild and wet weather reaching
   northward from Florida to New England.

   Scientists have linked the extreme weather to warming El Nino currents
   in Pacific waters stretching from coastal Ecuador and Peru northward to
   encompass the U.S. West Coast.

   Floods wreak havoc in South America

   In South America, emergency officials say as many as 150,000 people in
   the border areas of Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina have fled
   their homes ahead of severe flooding from torrential summer rains
   linked to the El Nino phenomenon.

   Regional reports say 90,000 residents of the Paraguayan capital,
   Asuncion, had been evacuated by Saturday evening -- many of them
   families living in sub-standard housing near the Paraguay River.

   ''
   Paraguay's President Horacio Cartes declared a state of emergency in
   the capital and several nearby regions.

   Another 20,000 people in nearby northern Argentina also were forced to
   flee, while officials in Uruguay said 9,000 people near swollen rivers
   had suffered the same fate.

   Civil defense authorities in the nearby southeastern Brazilian state of
   Rio Grande do Sol said at least 7,000 residents had evacuated.
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   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/severe-weather-batters-americas/31210
   68.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/severe-weather-batters-americas/3121068.html