During the early hours of Monday, a deep upper trough crossed the Southern Plains of the United States. With a very moist air mass ahead of this from the Gulf of Mexico, an eastwards moving line of severe thunderstorms was generated across the Mississippi Valley. The storms spawned several tornadoes, these mostly across Arkansas, which left behind heavy damage in places.
Very cold conditions have continued to affect parts of south-east Europe through the past week. The maximum temperature in Sofia, Bulgaria's capital, on Thursday was a bitter –5.8C; this is approximately seven degrees below the January average. Also on Thursday, Bucharest, the capital city of Romania, recorded a high of just –6.1C, likewise about seven degrees below average. On the same day Bucharest also saw blizzards, with 10cms of fresh snow falling while the wind gusted up to 45mph. With accumulations of snow already present, a snow depth of 39cm was measured by the end of Thursday.
In the southern hemisphere, widespread torrential rain caused severe flooding on the coast of Queensland, Australia, last week. In the 18 hours to 4am local time on Wednesday, an impressive 141mm of rain fell in Beerburum. The unsettled conditions then persisted across Queensland throughout the rest of the week with 10cm being dumped over Hervey in the 18 hour period ending 4am Saturday.