A 46-car pileup on a snowy interstate in Indiana has left three people dead. The vehicles – most of them semi trucks – collided while driving in poor weather conditions. More than 20 people were also injured on Interstate 94, which connects Chicago and Detroit, as heavy snowfall and low visibility made for dangerous driving conditions. According to the Associated Press, a front of lake-effect... 

Record freezing temperatures gripped the entire US, including Hawaii, as a major winter storm hit the country. The alarming weather brought ice and heavy snowfall caused by a ‘polar vortex’, bringing many cities to a standstill and killing at least 21. The 21 fatalities included a 1-year-old Missouri boy, who died when a car he was riding in was hit by a snow plow, AP reported. Authorities... 

The American Midwest and Northeast have braced for a “polar vortex,” a megastorm that is expected to bring record low temperatures on Monday. So far extreme weather conditions have claimed at least 16 lives, paralyzed travel and caused power shortage. For those exposed to the inclement conditions frostbite and hypothermia will be a danger as – 31°C is expected in North Dakota, –... 

Thousands of specialized vehicles and workers are out on the streets after abnormally heavy snowfall, which caused a state of emergency in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, reached Moscow. The depth of snow cover in the Russian capital had reached 59cm (23 inches) by Sunday morning, with the synoptic forecast expecting 15cm (6 inches) in the next 24 hours. But the extremely powerful Mediterranean cyclone... 

The snowiest winter in a century has hit the Russian capital, causing Muscovites to get stuck in traffic jams 3,500km in length on Monday evening – the distance from Moscow to Madrid. ­Since the beginning of the winter, over 2 meters of snow has fallen on the Russian capital, the Moscow mayor’s aide in housing and public utilities Pyotr Biryukov told Interfax. Snowfall is expected in Moscow for... 

Unrelenting snowfalls have caused unprecedented chaos in Russia. Over the past week, the country has seen scores of traffic accidents, flight delays and, in some cases, the complete isolation of some remote settlements and towns. On Friday, Moscow was on a verge of traffic collapse as more than 10 inches of snow fell on the city, which is more than half of January’s average. Thousands of passengers... 

A resident in Greenfield, Massachusetts clears snow off his car, December 27, 2012. A powerful winter storm has pounded the US northeast, bringing heavy snow and strong winds across several states and killing several people. The storm, which has claimed some 16 lives so far, hit the northeast on Thursday after it wreaked havoc on a region stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes. The tempest... 

Fascination: Kenneth Libbrecht, Professor of Physics at the California Institute of Technology, has been studying snowflakes, ice patterns, crystal growth and ice formations since 1997 We are often told that every snowflake is different – but the naked eye is simply not advanced enough to appreciate the world’s favourite form of precipitation. But even without a white Christmas this year,... 

A man walks past a fence covered with hoarfrost in central Moscow, on December 19, 2012. Nearly 200 people have died in Russia and across eastern Europe over the past week due to a cold snap which forecasters warn would last until Monday. In Russia, up to 56 people have been reported dead and 371 hospitalized as temperatures strike minus 20 degrees Celsius in Moscow. Weather forecasters said the “abnormal”... 

A homeless woman drinks free tea in a tent set by the Ukrainian Emergency Ministry during a winter day in the industrial city of Donetsk, December 18, 2012. Ukraine’s freezing winter has taken the lives of 24 more people pushing the overall death toll to 61 in December after temperatures fall below minus 23 degrees Celsius. The cold snap, which included almost half a meter of snow, killed 43 people... 

Moscow was literally paralyzed at night of November 30. The city and the region experienced two natural disasters in one night: a super heavy snowfall and an ice storm. The ice storm approached the Russian capital from the southwest. “The movement of these precipitations to the north and north-east of the capital is very slow. Temperatures will grow during the daytime. Snow will turn into rain,”... 

While high winds and rain brought on by superstorm Sandy tormented residents along much of the East Coast, the state of West Virginia was blanketed in a freak snowstorm as a result of the weather. Roughly a quarter of a million people across West Virginia lost power on Monday as Sandy caused extreme weather conditions across a large chunk of the US. More than a dozen counties across West Virginia... 

Cars covered in snow in central Chile At least 16 people have died in Chile so far this year due to freezing temperatures in the country’s capital city of Santiago, according to officials. On Sunday, one homeless person died on La Paz Street in the capital’s downtown area and another one died some five blocks from the government palace of La Moneda. The second victim was a 50-year-old man found... 

Seagulls fly over frozen sea as icicles covers a fence in the city of Constanta, 230 kilometers east of the Romanian capital Bucharest, on February 1, 2012. Severe cold spell has killed at least 83 people in Europe as temperatures dropped to below minus 30C (minus 22F) in some eastern regions of the continent. Ukrainian officials on Wednesday reported that the number of the deaths attributed to the... 

An unusual snowfall hit the Atacama desert, near Copiapo, Chile, Sunday. This has been the wettest winter in decades for Chile’s arid northern desert, where fractions of an inch of rain have done major damage in some areas and set the stage for spectacular floral displays in the weeks to come. July came and went with major storms that together dumped more than five times the annual average of...