Solar storms join floods, terrorism as risks to UK

"Severe space weather" poses a threat to communications systems, electronic circuits and power grids, the list said. Solar storms - eruptions of magnetic energy and charged particles - are part of the sun's normal 11-year cycle, which is expected to reach a peak next year.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- America's weather is stuck on extreme. Nearly 11 feet of snow has fallen on Anchorage, Alaska, this winter. The first three months of 2012 have seen twice the normal number of tornadoes. And 36 states set daily high temperature records Thursday. So far this month, the U.S. has set 1,757 daily high temperature records. That's similar to the number during last summer's heat wave. Six rare, but not unprecedented, March tornadoes struck Thursday in Michigan, which also set 26 heat records. Temperatures were in the 80s in some parts of the state.