When a wildfire burns hot enough, it can build a genuine thunderstorm above itself, one that sparks new fires with dry lightning and can loft smoke into the stratosphere for months.

The Weather Channel has named winter storms for 14 seasons running, using a population-and-area formula it built itself. The National Weather Service — and the AP — still won't use the names.

Shelters are filling and the ports are shut as a Category 5-equivalent storm bears down on Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, with landfall due Monday.

Six to seven inches of rain in hours killed at least four people and forced dozens of water rescues across central Kentucky.

A record-breaking heat dome that has killed dozens in Western Europe is sliding east, with Germany and Poland bracing for the weekend peak.