The tiny South Pacific nation of Tuvalu, which fears it could eventually be erased by rising sea levels, is bracing itself for high tides that are expected to flood low-lying areas of its main atoll later this week.

Tides associated with the new moon are expected to raise the sea level by as much as 3.2 metres above normal, the director of Tuvalu's Meteorological Office, Hilia Vavae, told Associated Press. Such tides have become more frequent in recent years, possibly as a result of rising sea levels caused by global warming, added Vavae.

The risk of flooding is exacerbated by adverse weather conditions. At this point forecasters at the Tuvalu Met Office are predicting rain bands over the island but no severe storms.

Here in the UK there isn't much in the way of rain, and things are set to stay pretty dry over the next few days as we sit under a high pressure system. That means clearer skies at night, but also more in the way of overnight frosts. Luckily it won't get anywhere near as cold as parts of northeastern USA. The overnight temperature at Buffalo in New York State dropped to -18.9C by Monday morning. That's more than 10 degrees below the average February minimum temperature here of -6.7C.

It was also a case of cold Turkey yesterday as daytime temperatures at Erzincan, in eastern Turkey, failed to get higher than -8C. The average February temperature here is just over 2C.

While on the subject of cold weather, Russia is keeping warm despite its sub-zero temperatures and snowy conditions by celebrating the start of Pancake Week last night. Sadly we only get one day of pancakes here in the UK, and there is still another 7 days to go before it arrives. Not that I'm counting but when you get up at 4am your thoughts do turn to food rather more quickly than those who work more sociable hours. As yet it's too early to say whether British pancakes will also be accompanied by cold and snowy weather, but watch this space...

Weather News from the last five days:
16/02/2004
15/02/2004
14/02/2004
13/02/2004
12/02/2004

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