This week was another hectic one in weather terms – with plenty happening at home and abroad, both good and bad.

In the USA, we started the week with a look back at the deadly storms which ravaged many southeastern states, spawning dozens of tornadoes and causing tens of millions of dollars of damage.
The massive storm system is blamed for at least 37 deaths, and the destruction of countless homes and businesses.
Check out a video summary of some of the most shocking footage from the 5 days of horror that many have lived through in the US, here.

The week also ended with storm news from the USA, with more than 50 million people in the path of severe storms, and initial reports are very serious – a line of widely scattered strong storms brought tornadoes to Colorado and Minnesota, and damaging high winds as far south as Texas.
Officials said no one was hurt, nor was there any structural damage as of late Thursday (Friday NZT).

The USA wasn’t the only place suffering this week either – more people killed by natural disasters in Afghanistan in the last seven days alone than the entirety of last year.
At the heart of the destruction was the double landslide that engulfed a village in a remote northeastern province on Friday, killing more than 2,000 people.
A mass of rock and mud that came crashing down in the village of Abi Barak, in Badakhshan Province.
Have a look at some of CNN’s comprehensive coverage, here.

Even further afield, a curious phenomenon was observed for the first time in picture perfect high definition this week, with a solar explosion caught on camera by the newly comissioned Solar Dynamics Observatory.
A small, hovering mass of twisted strands of plasma shifted back and forth before erupting into space (Apr. 29-30, 2014) over a period of just one day.
Check out the video, here.

A little closer to home, across the Tasman, both Sydney and Canberra have been shivering this week, as winter starts to bite in the political and business capitals of Australia.
Canberra recorded its coldest morning of 2014 this week, while Sydney went one better and broke a 70 year old record for the start of May!

Meanwhile, at home, the latest government observations have proven what many of us already guessed – that April was ‘abnormally warm’ – and wet.
Christchurch, badly hit by flooding last month, received the second highest total of rainfall since records began 150 years ago – and nearly five times the normal amount for the month.
Check out a full summary of the findings, here.

Remember to check out Philip Duncan’s weekend forecast, here – as well as the long range outlook for the rest of the week here.
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– Drew Chappell for Weatherwatch

– Image: NASA